Topic:
Country: Belgium
Delegate Name: Evie Stornant
Evie Stornant
Williamston High School
The Kingdom Of Belgium
Human Rights Council
Repatriation of Refugees
In early years, the amount of international and domestic disputes has grown remarkably. the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees, or shortened to UNHCR, was created by the United Nations in order to help deal with the quickly growing refugee crisis. Although the UNHCR has taken the lead to deal with the voluntary repatriation of refugees and guaranteeing the coordination of the refugee’s home nations, numerous human rights concerns still exist and take place all over the world such as famine, lack of water, homelessness, and lack of medical resources.. The Human Rights Council, or HRC, is taking action to help assist the UNHCR to possibly find solutions to some of these problems and to help with this cause.
Belgium has worked with the UNHCR to try and protect the human rights of foreigners. They have succeded by creating Myria, which defends and ensures the human rights of detained foreigners under circumstances of deportation or re-entry. Myria works to protect these human rights through their three main goals which are to protect the rights of foreigners, fight against human trafficking and smuggling, and to inspect migration. To protect the rights of foreigners, Myria follows the complex legislation that controls this issue and provides foreigners with a first line of support to give them the necessary information on their fundamental rights and residency status. Myria also plays the role of an independent monitoring mechanism in the field of human trafficking and smudging on behalf of the Belgian state. This means Myria will hld it’s power until legan action must be taken, and will draw up a yearly independent public evaluation report to show how Belgium has developed in the battle against international human trafficking and smuggling. Lastly, Myria inspects migration by focusing on the nature and characteristics of the evolution of migration. The main point of this is to be updating the public authorities and the civil and wider society on the migration movements both in and out of the country. Detention centers in Belgium are also used to keep foreigners in their process of deportation, but can also be used by the Immigration Office to detain a foreigner.
Belgium has also worked with the UNHCR to help out asylum seekers and refugees. The Acess to Asylum Law of the Kingdom of Belgium helps aid the granting of asylum or a refugee status. All of this continues to provide seperate specific protection asylum criteria entrenched by the 1951 convention pertaining to the Treatment of Refugees and its 1967 arrangement. Becuase of the risk of serious harm in specific countries, some individuals may be granted a temporary backup protection even if they do not fit the legal criteria for refugee status. Under the EU Emergancy Relocation Mechanism, the country was able to accept refugees through UNHCR. Belgium has also managed to oversee a voluntary return program for migrants working together with the International Organization for Migration.
Sources:
GLICA
https://glica.org/Glica-Conferences/Glimun-2023-Conference/Glimun-2023-Committees/Repatriation-of-Refugees/
“Belgium – United States Department of State”
https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/belgium/
“Repatriation, detention, deportation” Myria,
https://www.myria.be/en/fundamental-rights/repatriation-detention-and-deportation
“About Myria” Myria,
https://www.myria.be/en/about-myria#:~:text=Myria%2C%20the%20Belgian%20Federal%20Migration,on%20evidence%20and%20human%20rights.
