In his article, Matteo de Bellis, Amnesty International discusses the lack of empathy towards refugees and migrants expressed from the side of (non)-EU governments during the Covid-19 pandemic situation, yet translating it into an opportunity for all to understand what compassion is.
Emphasizing the significant work migrants do, the author reveals distorted labour patterns while offering solutions taking into account current developments in EU countries regarding their treatment of asylum seekers. Here are some highlights:
- People who care for the elderly and children, who do construction work or picking fruits and veggies often have migration background receiving low payments.
- Today`s society depends on ‘low skilled’ workers, that is for most of the part migrants.
- Europe is now facing labour shortages (e.g. Eastern European citizens are unable to travel on time for the harvest season), this is why it is necessary to reconsider the ways we govern mobility.
- Agricultural companies demand from governments to regulate the stay of undocumented migrants.
- As ‘governments only remember migrants when they need them reveals an embarrassing lack of empathy for people particularly at risk during the pandemic’.
- Covid-19 provides governments to further tighten the borders of Fortress Europe.
- Italy and Malta re-introduced the so-called “closed port” policies, meaning not letting people in and pushing them back towards Libya.
- Austria, Cyprus and Hungary are denying access to asylum, whereas Bosnia imprisoned thousands of people in camps with terrible living conditions.
- The EU should provide humanitarian assistance to people stuck in countries with fewer possibilities to deal with the crisis. It should also open opportunities for resettlement and re-build migration systems that are to respond to international obligations, market needs, poverty and equality.
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