Research
Fundamental research - Ongoing -
Global Migration Justice: Beyond conflicting approaches to migration in international human rights law - MIGJUST
Researcher: Prof. dr. Thomas Spijkeboer
Advocacy for Migrants in European Transit Zones. Analysing Innovative Strategies for Political Change
Researcher: Marlies Casier
Supervisor: Prof. dr. Robin Vandevoordt and Prof. dr. Ellen Desmet
Family reunification of Turkish migrants in Belgium and the Netherlands: a comparative study of legal consciousness of Turkish migrants in light of evolving policies
Researcher: Ayse Güdük
Supervisor: Prof. dr. Ellen Desmet
Economic refugees: an analysis of persecution and displacement in the new global era
Researcher: Shepherd Mutsvara
Supervisors: Prof. dr. Joanna Bar (Pedagogical University of Krakow), Prof. dr. Ellen Desmet
Children’s rights in appellate asylum proceedings in Belgium: a legal ethnography
This project adopts an interdisciplinary, contextualised and multi-actor approach to analyse how key stakeholders involved in the adjudication of Belgian asylum cases in appeal perceive, mobilise and practice children’s rights. Research methods from law (case law analysis) and anthropology (ethnography) will be combined to study the role and perspective of children and young people, their parents or guardians, lawyers, representatives of the first instance asylum authority, and judges from the Council for Alien Law Litigation (CALL).
The questions guiding this research are (1) how do individuals experience and understand children’s rights (perceive); (2) to what extent do they define relevant problems in terms of children’s rights (mobilise); and (3) which norms and practices shape the internal legal culture by which the CALL operates (practice)? The project contributes to the field of ‘critical children’s rights studies’, paying attention in particular to how children’s rights are shaped by children themselves and through interaction of children with other groups. This project is funded by FWO (2020-2024).
Researcher: Sara Lembrechts
Supervision: Prof. dr. Ellen Desmet
Challenging queer migration narratives. A case study of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) rights in the Belgian asylum procedure
Once arrived in Europe, in a country where SOGI rights are recognised as human rights and as such expanded the scope of refugee law, the struggles of SOGI refugees continue. To receive international protection, they have to construct a narrative which proofs the credibility of their sexual orientation and gender identity, and the well-foundedness of their fear of persecution – in the eye of the beholder. The asylum procedure leaves SOGI refugees and state actors to negotiate with(in) the legal framework to come to the same understanding of SOGI rights, despite different cultural contexts and the dominance of Western frameworks.
Building on the critical insights of queer and post-colonial scholars, the research aims to gain insight into the complexity of the asylum procedure and its intertwinement with essentialised narratives of queer(ness and) migration through a case study of SOGI applications in the Belgian asylum procedure. Interviews, participant observations and co-operations as well as a critical discourse analysis will reveal the narratives inherent in the construction of SOGI rights by SOGI refugees and in the assessment of those rights by state actors.
Researcher: Liselot Casteleyn
Supervision: Prof. dr. Ellen Desmet, Prof. dr. Marlies Casier
REFUFAM: The Integration of Refugee Families in Belgium
The REFUFAM project aims to provide scientific evidence on the impact of so-called ‘policy gaps’ and emergent support structures on the integration process of one particular group: refugees and their family members. The interdisciplinary research design consists of three pillars, building on different disciplines: a legal-political pillar examining the institutional configuration of Belgium’s asylum and integration policies; a psychosocial pillar analyzing refugee family members’ mental well-being; and a socio-spatial pillar documenting their local integration pathways. In analyzing this multi-layered integration process, REFUFAM innovatively takes refugee families as its central analytic unit. REFUFAM’s impact is situated at 4 levels: government policies, practitioners, scholarly debates and the broader public.
As a PhD student, Roos-Marie van den Bogaard focusses on the first pillar; the legal-political analysis of institutional configurations in Belgium. Her research consists of three components: 1) desk-based research, 2) in-depth interviews with refugee families and 3) ethnographic analysis of organisations and institutions. Her desk-based research aims to list the rights of refugee families throughout their integration trajectory, which is in turn used to identify key state actors as well as policy gaps. The in-depth interviews with refugee families will probe into the social structures and structural resources that enable them to realize their rights in praxis, as well as how legal procedures enable or disable them from doing so. The ethnographic analysis will look at how policies translate into instruments of street level governance.
REFUFAM is funded by the Belspo-BRAIN-be 2.0 research programme (Belgian Research Action through Interdisciplinary Networks). For more information, see here.
Researcher: Roos-Marie van den Bogaard
Supervision: Prof. dr. Ellen Desmet, Prof. Robin Vandevoordt, Prof. dr. Milena Belloni (UAntwerp)
The implementation of the principle of the best interests of the child in a migratory context: a multimethod study of the decisions and approaches adopted by the Belgian migration authorities
The research adopts an interdisciplinary, multi-method and multi-actor approach. As such, typical legal methods (case law analysis and desk research) are combined with qualitative sociological methods (semi-structured interviews, observations and focus groups). The latter allow to study the social representations and professional practices of the relevant actors in the field. They include: lawyers, tutors, judges of the Council for Alien Law Litigation (CALL), the Belgian Immigration Office and the Guardianship Service.
The objective is twofold: the aim is to analyse not only the formal reasoning adopted by administrative and jurisdictional authorities ruling on minors in a migratory situation (case law analysis), but also the intrinsic motivation behind this reasoning (qualitative methods). This project is funded by FNRS (2020-2024).
Researcher: Laura Cools
Supervision and doctoral committee: Prof. dr. Sylvie Saroléa (UCLouvain), Prof. dr. Laura Merla (UCLouvain), Prof. dr. Géraldine Mathieu (UNamur), Prof. dr. Ellen Desmet (UGent)
You too? No way! Rape mythology applied to credibility assessments of applications based on sexual or gender-based violence in the European asylum procedure
Researcher: Lore Roels
Supervision: Prof. dr. Ellen Desmet, Prof. dr. Ines Keygnaert
Lost in transit? Deconstructing the il/legalization of migrants dwelling in European ‘transit zones’
Researcher: Maud Martens
Supervision: Prof. dr. Robin Vandevoordt, Prof. dr. Ellen Desmet
Reclaiming the future? Critical perspectives on social work with and policies on undocumented migrants
The structural exclusion of illegalised migrants from Belgian society, their limited rights, and limited access to social services make it difficult for social workers, legal counsellors and volunteers to provide support beyond migrants’ immediate material needs, situated in the present. However, over the years a number of organisations have adopted a more structural approach towards providing social support for illegalised migrants. This research project aims to gain a deeper insight into structural social support practices and specific approaches to socio-legal and psycho-social support through ethnographic research methods. It tries to situate these practices and the multiple actors involved in the socio-political context.
On the one hand, the research examines local and municipal initiatives that link conditional welfare services, namely shelter, to intensive social counselling of illegalised migrants towards certain future perspectives. On the other hand, the research endeavours to encompass how social workers, volunteers and illegalised migrants themselves construct informal forms of social support.
Researcher: Soline Ballet
Supervision: Prof. dr. Robin Vandevoordt, Prof. dr. Ellen Desmet, Prof. dr. Ine Lietaert
Beyond limbo: theorizing, analyzing and realizing human rights protection of irregular migrants who cannot be returned
“Non-removable” migrants are caught in a legal limbo: they cannot stay, but they cannot be returned either. This situation often comes with long-term legal uncertainty and deplorable living conditions. It currently remains unclear how domestic law should address this group in a human rights-compliant manner. This PhD project, which is situated at the intersection of human rights law and migration law, aims to contribute to both the budding international scholarship on non-removable migrants and the current understanding of Belgian migration law. The overarching research objective is to theorize, analyse and realize the human rights protection of non-removable migrants, specifically in the Belgian legal system. First, an in-depth understanding of the group of non-removable migrants will be obtained through a detailed categorization exercise. Secondly, the protection offered by human rights (both in theory and in current law) will be delineated in a comprehensive human rights model. Thirdly, Belgian migration law will be evaluated in light of this human rights model, in order to identify gaps in the current legal framework. Finally, recommendations will be formulated based, among others, on an analysis of alternative approaches and comparative research into the German Duldungsstatut and the Buitenschuldvergunning in the Netherlands.
Researcher: Eva Sevrin
Supervision: Prof. dr. Koen Lemmens (KU Leuven), Prof. dr. Ellen Desmet
Refugees’ right to work: the case of urban refugees in Ethiopia
This research project aims to comprehensively investigate the legal and actual protection of urban refugees’ right to work in Ethiopia employing a mix of doctrinal and empirical approaches. First, the legal or paralegal spaces in which urban refugees in Ethiopia realize their possibility to work will be investigated from a socio-legal research perspective. Second, the protection of refugees’ right to work will be explored in light of international human rights and refugee law. Critical perspectives on international human rights and refugee law frameworks will be included in order to indicate the pitfalls in the system. Third, the national legal frameworks on and related to refugees’ right to work will be analyzed to divulge their strengths and weaknesses. Other legislative frameworks supplementing or contradicting the right to work will also be investigated. Finally, the relevance of the international and national legal frameworks in protecting refugees’ right to work in Ethiopia will be discussed with the intent to give recommendations to both frameworks.
Researcher: Woldegebriel Dagne
Supervision: Prof. dr. Ellen Desmet, Prof. dr. Milena Belloni (UAntwerpen), Prof. dr. Fekadu Adugna (Addis Ababa Universty)
Fundamental research - Finished -
Safe with the neighbours? Legal and actual protection of forced migrants in the Global South: perspectives on and from Morocco.
The EU increasingly seeks to outsource or 'externalise' its international responsibility for the protection of refugees and other migrants to third countries, such as Morocco. This PhD research examines, from a multidisciplinary perspective, what legal and actual protection exists for forced migrants in Morocco.
The dissertation evaluates the extraterritorial responsibility of states under international refugee and human rights law (doctrinal law perspective), examines what migrants themselves seek and understand to be protection, or 'protection consciousness' (socio-legal perspective), and looks at Morocco’s Africa diplomacy regarding asylum and migrants’ rights (critical international relations perspective).
Researcher: dr. Ruben Wissing
Supervision: Prof. dr. Ellen Desmet
defended on 28 November 2022
Exiled and Separated: A multi-sited ethnography of refugee families attempting to reunite
Researcher: Prof. dr. Milena Belloni
Supervision: Prof. Gert Verschraegen, Prof. dr. Ellen Desmet
Applied research - Ongoing -
Applied research - Finished -
PALIM: pilot project addressing labour shortages through innovative labour migration models (2019-2020)
PALIM (Project Addressing Labour Shortages Through Innovative Labour Migration Models) is a pilot project carried out by the Belgian development agency, Enabel, with support of the European Union and the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMDP). The project aims to test a new labour migration model, by linking the development of the ICT sector in Morocco with the labour shortage gaps of well-trained ICT-staff in Flanders. When persons are able to find a qualified job in both their country of origin (Morocco) and the country of destination (Belgium), labour mobility can benefit both parties. To that end, applicants are trained in Morocco as ICT workers and supported to find a job in one of these two countries.
Within this framework, the Migration Law Research Group carried out two exploratory studies, which aim to support the integration of Moroccan ICT workers in Belgium. The first report analyses welcome policies offered by companies and relocation services to migrant workers upon arrival in Flanders and Brussels. The second report provides a mapping and analysis of actors in Flanders and Brussels, who deal with the integration of migrant workers at a professional, social and personal level. In addition, tailored information was developed to support both employees and employers in the application for a single permit.
Researchers: Geertrui Daem, Evelyne Van der Elst
This research provides an insight into the administrative procedures regarding the implementation of the Directive 2014/54/EU into Belgian law, a European directive that intends to better facilitate the right to free movement of workers. The research contains a critical analysis and description of the municipal practices in the three regions of Belgium, focussing on the registration and residence formalities for EU citizens who exercise their right to free movement. The research also includes an exploratory analysis of residence formalities in the following countries: Germany, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Italy. Lastly, the research will give possible recommendations regarding the law and implementation thereof as well as suggestions for more efficient and uniform municipal practices. The research is carried out in collaboration with the EU Rights Clinic of the University of Kent and Fragomen; it is funded by Myria – the Federal Migration Centre.
The report as well as the executive summary, a terminology sheet and the country fiches of the comparative analysis can be found here.
Researchers: Roos-Marie van den Bogaard and Prof. dr. Ellen Desmet
Council of Europe Handbook: Family reunification for refugee and migrant children – Standards and promising practices (2018-2020)
In May 2017, the Committee of Ministers adopted the Council of Europe Action Plan on Protecting Refugee and Migrant Children in Europe. It outlines concrete actions to be undertaken by the Council of Europe, grouped around three pillars. Assisting children and families in restoring family links is one of the actions under the second pillar aimed at providing refugee and migrant children with effective protection.
In the framework of the Action Plan, the Office of the Special Representative on Migration and Refugees has published a Handbook on family reunification for refugee and migrant children, available in English and in French.
Researcher: Prof. dr. Ellen Desmet
The Moving Cities Map: research on solidarity cities in Belgium for a Europe-wide, web-based mapping project (2020-2021)
The Belgian section of the research provides an overview of Belgian cities that are active in a city network on better migration and integration policies and/or have publicly declared themselves as a city of solidarity. The research also includes an overview of Belgian networks, campaigns or alliances related to the topic of migration and integration. The biggest part of this research is devoted to the draft of city profiles through desk research and interviews. These cities will be mapped out as best practice examples n Belgium with regard to their migration and integration policies.
The result can be read here.
Researchers: Eva Vandenhove, Liselot Casteleyn, Prof. dr. Ellen Desmet