Workshop – The deportation of unaccompanied minors from the EU: family-tracing and government accountability in the European Return Platform for Unaccompanied Minors (ERPUM) project

Date: 10:30am, Friday, May 03, 2013 - 06:00pm, Friday, May 03, 2013

Presenter/Convenor: Professor Dawn Chatty and Dr Martin Lemberg-Pedersen

Location: Oxford Department of International Development, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB

Series: Conferences and workshops

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About the workshop

The European Return Platform for Unaccompanied Minors (ERPUM) is an EU project to find new methods for the return of unaccompanied minors (UAMs), mainly from Afghanistan, who have received a final rejection of their asylum application.

This has raised a number of political, legal and moral concerns. These include the feasibility of family-tracing and the safety of deported children in war-torn Afghanistan, the (in)compatibility of ERPUM’s goals with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the European jurisdiction relating to children deported from their territories. Furthermore, European states have been reluctant to disseminate information about the progress of ERPUM negotiations and the concrete practices the project is envisioned to involve.

This one-day workshop will convene academics and policymakers to discuss this urgent and critical issue.

Programme

10:30-11:00 Registration and coffee/tea

11:00-11.15 Introduction – Dawn Chatty, RSC

11:15-11.45 'The evolution of the ERPUM project' – Martin Lemberg-Pedersen, University of Copenhagen

11:45-12:30 'Afghan perspectives on ERPUM' – Liza Schuster, City University London.

12:30-13:30 Lunch

13:30-14:15 'ERPUM and the Convention on the Rights of the Child' – Rebecca Stern, University of Uppsala

14:15-15:00 'Ethical reflections on ERPUM' – Matthew J Gibney, RSC

15:00-16:00 Coffee/tea

16:00-17:00 Panel discussion – Martin Lemberg-Pedersen (University of Copenhagen) (Chair); Jan Murk (UNICEF Netherlands); Eva Singer (Danish Refugee Council); Andrea Vonkeman (UNHCR) (by video link) [NB due to problems with recording quality, this presentation is not included in the podcast]; Liza Schuster (City University London); Rebecca Stern (University of Uppsala)

17:00-17:30 Summary and closing session