Today is 18 December, the day declared International Migrants Day by the UN General Assembly. On 18 December 1990, the UN General Assembly adopted the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, the only UN human rights convention Serbia has not ratified. The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights would like to alert on this day that over 360 asylum seekers are awaiting decisions on their asylum applications in Asylum Centres in Serbia, while another 110 people are spending their days and nights in open air, without any shelter or protection, waiting for accommodation in the Centres. Around 9,500 irregular migrants passed through Serbia in 2011. Of them, 3132 sought asylum in Serbia but none of them were granted refugee protection. The situation did not change in 2012 either; 2166 people expressed the intention to seek asylum in Serbia by 1 November 2012, but none of them were granted refuge in the Republic of Serbia.
“As budgets tighten, we are seeing austerity measures that discriminate against migrant workers,
xenophobic rhetoric that encourages violence against irregular migrants, and proposed immigration
laws that allow the police to profile migrants with impunity. During economic downturns, it is
worth remembering that whole sectors of the economy depend on migrant workers and migrant
entrepreneurs help to create jobs.”
Ban Ki-moon
Message for International Migrants Day,
18 December 2012
