This pact, which is expected to be approved in April, before the election of the European Parliament in June, would annul the universal right for soliciting asylum recognized in the Geneva Convention of 1951.
The right for asylum would be canceled for whichever nationalities the EU might decree. There is already a list of countries that are excluded: Senegal, Morocco, Algeria, Niger, Afghanistan… That is to say that rights would be granted according to nationality without regard to the seriousness of the causes underly-ing the requests for asylum that have to do with wars, climate change, sexual orientation, female genital mutilation, etc.
The rights for persons who have already established themselves and set down roots would disappear, im-peding the regrouping families finding themselves in different countries. This would imply leaving minors who are victims of war abandoned, in the hands of mafias, human trafficking, prostitution and trafficking in human organs.
The Pact harms the rights of minors, age reduced from 12 to 6, regarding procedures at the borders. It also harms the specific rights of women and the LGTBIQ+ collective, who would lose all possibility of re-questing asylum if they belong to a country the EU considers “safe”.
The summary deportations carried out at the border illegally would become legal and financed the same as detentions regarding race and deportations. The measures presented as an improvement in welcoming are totally to the contrary, because detentions on the borders of the UE would increase, including those for families with minors and vulnerable people.
Although it speaks of solidarity among European countries, it is the opposite because it does not give support to the countries to which the immigrants first arrive, such as Spain, Italy and Greece; rather it fa-vors that the wealthy countries pay to not receive immigrants or finances countries outside the EU to im-pede people arriving to Europe.
The Pact permits countries to not comply with a wide variety of norms for asylum in times when there is an increase in arrivals. These exemptions could normalize disproportionate measures of emergency in the EU, setting a dangerous precedent for the right to asylum all over the world.
Women in Black against war reject the criminalization of migratory movements that some political parties and some media encourage and we ask the European Union and our country:
With all of them and for all of them, it is urgently necessary that:
♀ More investment in a dignified welcome and amplification of safe avenues and regulations that offer pro-tection without going on dangerous trajectories.
♀ To not evade their responsibility to protect refugees.
♀ To not permit summary illegitimate and sometimes violent deportations in any member country nor pol-icies that deny asylum.