Migration Summer School 26/7/2018 – 1/8/2018 in Athens, Greece

Migrant Tales received the following mail from Dr. Theodoros Fouskas. 

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2018 MIGRATION SUMMER SCHOOL (MIGSS) on Precarious Labour, Human Trafficking, & Social Exclusion in Europe

A unique summer program with on-site visits in Greece

26 July- 1 August 2018 EPLO premises in Sounion

• ? 7-day program in English will offer a state-of-the-art overview of the most important theoretical debates and research findings on migration, precarious work, human trafficking and social exclusion.
• Open for Practitioners and Students of all disciplines (i.e. Sociology, Social Policy, International Relations, Human Rights, Economics et al.)
• On-Site Visits to Reception Facilities & NGOs
• Meet key academics and experts working in the field
• Esp. for PhD s: Get feedback on your work

The context

Over the past years, Europe and especially Southern European Countries have faced the largest flow of refugees and immigrants in their recent history. No one can ignore the social controversies, the policy inadequacies and the tragedies that accompany migration as well as the precarious lives that immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees of all ages and genders must endure. They battle to survive in the social margins while their social and human rights are encroached upon. According to the United Nations, it is estimated that there are more than 244 million international migrants living abroad worldwide and at least 21.3 million are refugees, 3.2 million asylum seekers and 65.3 million individuals were forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict, generalized violence, or human rights violations. Moreover, most of the international migrants are employed, voluntarily or not, in precarious, low status/low-wage jobs and personal services. These jobs are characterized by inequalities in survival and everyday life, inequalities in income and social protection. Due to the way of work and employment, the life of the workforce is at risk, as well as its freedoms and potential for progress and social development. Of these, approximately 45.8 million people are in some form of modern slavery, according to the Walk Free Foundation. Immigrants and refugees have become part of a cheap workforce reserve that is continually renewed while the division of labour prompts and entraps migrants into wage labour and low-status/low-wage jobs, distinguishing them by class, gender, race-nationality and religion and way of entrance into a country. The labour that migrants are exposed to is not only characterized by precarity, low status and low wages, exploitation, flexibility and instability, isolation and individualization, but also by decollectivization, or in other words by alienation from family, community, collective, networks of solidarity and labour rights. Precarious work is employment that lacks all the standard forms of labour security and is characterized by low wages, insecurity, exceptionally limited social benefits and legal rights, and high risks of ill health and creates barriers to labour organization strategies due to the isolated, atomized and non-unionized nature of immigrant employment. The exploitation of the process of migration has taken on the characteristics of forced labour of migrants and asylum seekers, who are deprived of basic human rights and are subjected to social exclusion. The key element inherent in the phenomenon of human trafficking, is the vulnerability they are subject to. The multiple causes, economic, political, social and cultural that activate human trafficking have their roots in the present migration system and relations between the sending and receiving countries. The prevailing restrictive European migration policies, the expansion of the informal economy which affect now all of Europe, the continuous rise of personal and care services and the sex industry and the difficult economic conditions are encouraging phenomena of social pathology such as that of human trafficking.

In this context, the course “2nd Migration Summer School (MIGSS) on Precarious Labour, Human Trafficking, & Social Exclusion in Europe” has been carefully designed and developed to provide participants with a comprehensive understanding of issues regarding precarious labour, human trafficking, and social exclusion of immigrants and refugees and a theoretical and practical understanding of contemporary migration in Europe, with a particular focus on the current situation in Europe. This will be achieved through lectures and discussions led by international professors and experts, as well as through a day of site-visits to facilities and organizations in Athens that support refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants. This program is organized by the European Law & Governance School, and will operate out of the EPLO’s premises at Sounion, Greece from the 26th of July to the 1st of August, 2018.

About the course

The “2nd Migration Summer School (MIGSS) on Precarious Labour, Human Trafficking & Social Exclusion in Europe” will be taught by academics and practitioners from European and international universities, institutions and research centers:

• ??Bridget Anderson, Professor of Migration, Mobilities and Citizenship, University of Bristol, United Kingdom.
• ??Giovanna Campani, Professore ordinario, Dipartimento di Scienze Formazione e Psicologia, Pedagogia generale e sociale, Università degli Studi di Firenze (UniFI).(TBC)
• ??Gabriella Sanchez, PhD, Research Fellow, Migration Policy Centre European University Institute (EUI), Italy.
• ??Iraklis Moskoff, PhD, Greek National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings, Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
• ??Daniel Esdras, Special Envoy of the DG of the IOM, Advisor to the Regional Director for the Mediterranean.
• ??Theodoros Fouskas, Sociologist, PhD, Laboratory Associate (2016-2018), Department of Social Work, Technological Educational Institute of Athens, Greece.
• ??Lefteris Papagiannakis, Dep. Mayor for Immigrants, Refugees and Municipal Decentralization Municipality of Athens, Greece.