Strengthening the protection of the human rights of migrants in Italy, through the establishment of a network of trained lawyers and activists and through a network of organizations engaged at European level in sea rescue. This is the ultimate goal of the SHIELDS projectpromoted by Active Citizenship e VOLUME (Italian Coalition for Civil Liberties and Rights), funded by the European Commission under the CERV 2023 (LITI) Programme “Citizens, equality, rights and values”.
“In recent years, discriminatory policies and practices have consolidated in Italy, generating inequalities and exclusion of migrants or people with a migrant background, with a greater impact on the most vulnerable subjects, such as minors and women.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the redress mechanisms provided for by EU law are poorly known and applied, despite there being multiple areas of application for the protection of the rights of migrants. With the SCUDI project we aim to overcome this situation of systematic violation of rights through an empowerment and capacity building action aimed at civil society organizations committed to defending the rights of migrants” – this is stated by Laura Liberto, National Coordinator of the Justice for Rights network of Cittadinanzattiva, and Arturo Salerni, President of CILD.
SCUDI will have three main activities:
- the development of the SCUDI Knowledge Platforma publicly accessible virtual platform, which collects and systematises useful information for the development of the skills of lawyers, legal trainees and human rights activists, for a broader application of strategic litigation and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights;
- trainingin online and in-person mode, of 40 people including lawyers and legal trainees and 30 human rights activists, with the aim of creating a network of lawyers to train pilot cases on strategic issues and a network of human rights “sentinel” activists. The modalities for participating in the training will be announced in July, to start the activity in October;
- the creation of a European Networkfor legal support to NGOs involved in sea rescue, in particular to create a common alert system to defend sea rescue workers and to organize strategic litigation before the European Courts.
The European Network has just been established and the following 10 organisations active in Europe and involved in sea rescues have joined it: Access Foundation – Pro Bono Unit (Malta), Alarmphone (Greece), Front-lex (Greece), JRS Malta (Malta), Open Arms (Spain), Humanitarian Maritime Rescue (SMH) (Spain), SEA-WATCH (Germania), SOS Humanity (Germania), StraLi (Italia), UpRights (international).
The Network will be presented publicly, and with it the activities connected to SCUDI, during a public event scheduled for next October 2nd in Rome.
More information is available at this link
