communications's blog

PICUM will held the workshop "Violence and Exploitation of Undocumented Migrant Women: Building Strategies to End Impunity" on 25 June 2010, in Brussels, Belgium. This workshop was originally scheduled for Friday, 23 April 2010 in Madrid but had to be changed due to the flight disruptions during that period.

You can subscribe or unsubscribe to the PICUM newsletter online at http://www.picum.org/article/subscribe-picum-newsletter .

This newsletter is funded by Commissie Projecten in Nederland (PIN), the European Commission’s Daphne III Programme, Mama Cash, Network of European Foundations-European Program on Integration and Migration (NEF-EPIMII), the Sigrid Rausing Trust and Zennström Philanthropies.

A student from the Free University Berlin is looking for information on the transposition process of the so called 'returns directive' by the European Union for her master’s thesis. If you have information in English, French or German on the process and in particular on discourses on the EU level Commission, Council, Parliament) as well as on civil society involvement, please contact Rika Ott at Rika.Ott@gmail.com .

“Undocumented and irregular migration: policy developments, data and social implications,” is a new report by PICUM on a workshop organized by the European Commission, DG Research. The objective of this workshop was to present the main results of the DG Research projects CLANDESTINO and Undocumented Workers in Transition (UWT) to the policy community based in Brussels.

The 35th Annual Meeting of the Social Science History Association will take place in Chicago, Illinois, 18-21 November 2010. The 2010 Program Committee seeks panel proposals that will focus on Power and Politics and submissions will be accepted until 15 February 2010. The organizers are interested in topics such as undocumented migrants, gender empowerment and forced migration. For further information on the topics and where to send a submission, please visit
http://www.ssha.org/annual-conference,

The Swiss Trade Union SSP/VPOD will hold a one-day workshop in Geneva, Switzerland, on 24 March 2010, on the right to education and vocational training of undocumented migrants. The event will gather academics, researchers, NGO activists and local authorities on the occasion of the end of the campaign "Aucun enfant n'est illégal" (“No child is illegal”). For information: Dario Lopreno (SSP/VPOD),
dario.ge@bluewin.ch,
http://www.sans-papiers.ch/site/index.php?id=180&L=4 .

A new report released by Human Rights Watch, “A State of Isolation”, discusses access to abortion for women in Ireland. The report details how women struggle to overcome the financial, logistical, physical, and emotional burdens imposed by restrictive laws and policies that force them to seek care abroad, without support from the state. As a result some women and girls are forced to travel from Ireland to other European countries for abortions while those that are unable to travel abroad, such as undocumented women are left without a choice. Source: http://www.hrw.org/node/87910 .

In Italy, Following the riots that took place in Rosarno, Italy (see section on “Italy” in this newsletter), an independent network of immigrants and citizens inspired by the French movement “La journée sans immigrés: 24h sans nous” (“A Day Without Immigrants: 24 Hours Without Us”) decided to organize a one-day strike of immigrants and people who are against discrimination towards migrants on 1 March 2010.