ECIU summer course on human rights violations at European borders

The ECIU micro-modules are short courses, from 1 to 5 ECTS credits, which aim to develop transversal competencies and explore specific topics with social relevance. In this case, the objective of the course was to analyse the European Union's migration policies, their human consequences, and the related geopolitical interests. Emphasis was also placed on social movements and initiatives led by migrants who resist these violations of rights.

The course, organised by the Fundació Autònoma Solidària with the collaboration of the UAB Challenges Office, included a combination of expert-led sessions and group work, interacting with key actors, case studies, resistance movements, and self-organisation, in order to develop advocacy tools and critical perspectives.

Twenty-two students from the UAB and three other European universities participated: the universities of Trento, Tampere and Linköping. The course consisted of eight sessions, three online and five face-to-face, led by experts, professionals and activists linked to organisations and groups in the field of refuge and migration. In addition, various activities, spaces and initiatives were also offered outside the classroom related to projects led by migrants, such as Migrantour and dinner at the Abarka Cooperative.

The training is part of the UAB Refugee Programme, a proposal for inclusion and socio-academic reception of forcibly displaced persons at the UAB, which includes training, awareness-raising and advocacy activities focused on asylum, refuge and migration, from a perspective based on human rights and a review approach based on decolonial feminism. Thus, the first session presented this context, emphasising the responsibility of universities in the effective fulfillment of human rights and actions against the violations suffered by displaced persons. Paula Martí, advocacy director of the Catalan Commission of Action for Refugees (CCAR) then offered a normative framework with an online workshop dedicated to the European Pact on Migration and Asylum, its background and its consequences and impacts from a Human Rights perspective. José Bautista, director of investigative journalism at the PorCausa Foundation, led a third online session focused on the externalisation of migration control from the perspective of investigative journalism. The face-to-face sessions offered a review of various scenarios around European borders, spaces inside and outside the European Union where serious violations of rights take place, protected and promoted by its own policies. Lorenzo Gabrielli, researcher at GRITIM and GEA, addressed the neocolonial partnerships between the EU and African countries for the externalisation of borders. Úrsula Ruiz Cabello and Clara Calderó, representatives of Irídia: Centre per la Defensa dels DDHH and Novact, discussed the situation of the Spanish southern borders, examining in detail the massacre at the border between Nador and Melilla on 24 June 2022. The sixth session was dedicated to the Balkan border territories, with Myriam Corra, humanitarian specialist and member of Collective Aid. Finally, a session was dedicated to present initiatives of self-organisation and resistance led by migrants, with representatives of Top Manta, MigrEss and Cooperativa La Tregua.

Throughout the training, the students formed working groups and designed awareness-raising and advocacy proposals for the promotion and protection of the rights of migrants, refugees and displaced persons, which they presented in a final closing session.

This training included the collaboration of the Catalan Agency of Cooperation for Development.