Migrants in Vulnerable Situations

The Migrant and Refugee Orientation Centre is a place both to meet and to receive support, aimed at all groups and communities that make up the multicultural society of the City of Buenos Aires. It seeks to centralize activities of State bodies and civil organizations and promote initiatives, meeting the needs and demands of migrants and refugees. Its activities are divided into 3 main areas: 1) Guidance and support; 2) Job training; and 3) Sport and recreation.

Costa Rica has designed a comprehensive National Integration Plan (2018–22) in 2017 that promotes equal opportunities and respect for human rights to improve inclusive social, economic and cultural spaces.

‘Cuidamos Centro’ (‘We Take Care of the Centro District’) is an employment training and practice programme that targets groups at risk of exclusion and long term unemployment in Madrid. The programme is coordinated by the Madrid Municipal Employment Agency and District Board. The initiative provides training and paid employment opportunities for those deemed most excluded from the city’s labour market. Whilst it does not exclusively target foreign-born migrants, the latter group are over-represented among the project’s participants (also known as dynamizers).

Migrants as Messengers is a peer-to-peer messaging campaign by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) where returning migrants share with their communities and families the dangers, trauma, and abuse that many experienced while attempting irregular migration.  From smartphones to social media platforms and social networks, returning migrants from Senegal, Guinea, and Nigeria share their stories to generate awareness and provide advice and information on misconceptions about living abroad.

UNICEF's 'Children Uprooted' campaign is a broad communications campaign focusing on refugee and migrant children. As part of this campaign, UNICEF has urged governments and partners to realize a Six-Point Agenda For Action to: 

Access to justice is one of the principal challenges faced by migrant workers. In many cases, abused or illegally dismissed workers find it difficult or even outright impossible to file and prosecute labor complaints against their foreign employers. Once employment is terminated, the migrant worker has very limited options. Oftentimes, they are deported or opt to return to the home country without receiving their unpaid salaries, benefits and other monetary claims.

Foreigners in Mexico who find themselves in any of the following circumstances shall be authorized this status which allows them to stay in the country:

a) Being an injured party, victim of or witness to any crime committed in national territory.  The injured party or victim shall be deemed to be that person who is the passive subject of criminal conduct, regardless of whether the perpetrator is identified, apprehended, prosecuted or convicted, and irrespective of the family relationship between the victim and the perpetrator.

IOM’s Family Assistance Programme (FAP) was launched in March 2016 and is funded by the German Federal Foreign Office. The central aim of the programme is to support families in vulnerable situations to reunite with their relatives in Germany.  The programme facilitates access to family reunification, by assisting migrants with the visa application process.

In Morocco, national consultations were held in September 2017 with civil society and diaspora representivatives, scholars and researchers, represensatives of the private sector and public institutions. These national consultations have enabled Morocco to come with a consolidated contribution to the Global Compact, the "Recommendations of the Kingdom of Morocco on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration."

The Mixed Migration Monitoring Mechanism Initiative (4Mi) of the Mixed Migration Centre is a low-cost and innovative practices to collect and analyse data, initially out of the Horn of Africa, through mobile phone applications and community-based reporting. Through a network of thirty locally-recruited monitors in strategic migration hubs in Northern, Eastern, and Southern Africa, Southern and Eastern Europe, and the Middle East, the 4Mi project tracks Eritrean, Ethiopian, Djiboutian and Somali people on the move.