Church organizations have urged the European Union (EU) to do more to protect asylum seekers and to prevent immigrants being portrayed as "potential criminals".

"Human dignity is fundamental and has to be respected, regardless of whether someone has documents or not," the Churches' Commission for Migrants in Europe (CCME) and other church organizations told the EU.

Refugees and friends

Migration has become a "permanent global phenomenon" brought on by oppression and conflict, as well as poverty, drought and unemployment, the church organizations say. They add that European colonialism is a root cause of "still existing economic, political and cultural domination", and that churches recognize a human right to travel in search of better conditions. "A person who exercises his or her right to search for better living conditions should not be considered a criminal simply for doing so."

They acknowledge that even the most enlightened migration policy will not solve all the problems of global imbalance.

"But a future EU immigration policy should take as its starting point Europe's heritage as an area of exchange and mutual enrichment, recalling the historical benefits of migrants in European societies. A European Union that promotes freedom of movement and residence inside its borders as one of its guiding principles should not appear as a fortress to the outside world."

They warn that western European media have been too willing to "link refugees and asylum seekers to criminality".

Church leaders have frequently urged humanitarian treatment for immigrants and refugees in Europe, whose numbers have been boosted by conflicts in the Balkans, Caucasus and Middle East.

According to the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 346,098 people applied for asylum in EU countries in 1999, a 17 per cent rise over 1998.

The church organizations call for "harmonized and comparable statistics" on migration, as well as a "broad set of uniform rights" and a European monitoring centre for migration.

"New forms of slavery can be observed," they say, instancing the exploitation of women as prostitutes, of domestic workers, and of workers on construction sites. "Many migrants live among us without basic social rights or even without any rights at all."

"Thousands of irregular migrants have died on the borders of Europe in recent years," says CCME general secretary Doris Peschke, a German Lutheran. "This is truly a dramatic situation."

WARC/ENI