Selling border militarization as a humanitarian effort

Hein de Haas, co-director of the International Migration Institute (IMI) at Oxford University, wrote that “it is the very tightening-up of border controls that forces migrants to take dangerous routes and makes them increasingly dependent on human traffickers to get across the border.” He called it “the real scandal” that “governments and migration agencies such as Frontex shamelessly abuse tragedies such as the disaster off the coast of Lampedusa to invest even more money in “the fight against illegal migration”. While migrants die, the military industry sees a profit opportunity. Apart from direct sales of equipment for border security, arms producers have seen the financing of a lot of research projects to develop new products for border security, through the European 7th Framework Programme for Research and Development.

MA in Selling border militarization as a humanitarian effort (Campagne tegen wapenhandel)