The partner organizations of EuroMed Rights marked International Migrants Day in 2025 by reaffirming the urgent need to place human rights at the center of migration policies, with a focus on the countries of the Mediterranean region. In the context of the European Union increasingly delegating migration management to its southern neighbors, we are witnessing deepening and increasingly serious violations of fundamental rights, an increase in the number of people who have disappeared or died during their journey, and an alarming decline in transparency and institutional accountability.
EuroMed Rights, the Legal Aid Center “Voice in Bulgaria” and other partner organizations submitted a report to the UN Human Rights Committee’s Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, covering external migration management. It shows that the new European policy frameworks, including the Pact on Migration and Asylum, the revision of the return regime, the increased use of the concepts of “safe countries of origin” and “safe third countries,” and the expansion of opaque bilateral agreements increasingly expose people on the move to violence, refoulement, arbitrary detention, and discrimination. Surveillance mechanisms, the increasing use of surveillance technologies, and the lack of procedural safeguards fuel a system that, rather than protecting, contributes to endangering human lives.
EuroMed Rights points out that externalisation does not reduce migration, but makes it more dangerous and more brutal. We emphasize that this strategy creates increasingly deadly routes, undermines access to justice for people on the move and their families, strengthens authoritarian regimes, and reinforces racism in several countries in the region. The number of missing persons continues to rise due to the persistent and often deliberate failure of states to search for missing persons in the Mediterranean basin. At the same time, the families of victims tirelessly search for their loved ones, sometimes for decades, making mourning impossible and reunions increasingly unlikely. The disproportionate impact of externalization on women and girls, who are exposed to specific forms of sexual and gender-based violence, is particularly alarming. This also applies to unaccompanied children.
On December 18, we call on the European Union, its member states, and countries in the region to fully comply with international human rights obligations, including the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees;
guarantee and expand safe and legal pathways for people on the move; end opaque agreements that circumvent democratic control; ensure genuine transparency in the financing of migration policies; refuse to use or outsource invasive technologies that threaten fundamental freedoms; acknowledge and document human rights violations and disappearances of people on the move; and support families in their search for truth and justice.
The protection of people on the move is not negotiable. It must be at the heart of all public policies, both in Europe and in its neighbouring countries.
