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Powerful States have pushed their border controls deep into the territories of other States, disproportionately affecting asylum seekers and often deliberately targeting them. Yet most remote controls pre-date the international refugee regime and the exceptions in restrictive immigration laws for…

Since the 2015–16 peak in numbers of migrants crossing the Mediterranean, the European Union has sought to close off the Central Mediterranean route by enabling the interception and forced return of vessels carrying migrants. To facilitate this, the EU and…

Detention has long played a central role in the efforts of major destination countries to externalise their immigration controls and asylum procedures.[1] Under the guise of combatting the trafficking of people and assisting countries on the periphery of the Global…

Sudan ranks 14th in the world for prevalence of modern slavery per capita.[1] Different types of abuse and exploitation occur along mixed migration routes from East and West Africa to and through North Africa – routes travelled by people from Sudan, as…

Almost 20 years ago, UNHCR coined the term ‘protracted refugee situations’ to draw attention to the plight of refugees in extended exile and to promote durable solutions. However, the search for solutions for persons in longer-term displacement has been at…

The most widely used definition of protracted displacement is UNHCR’s term for people who are ‘stuck’ in a particular place for at least five years. This stresses the static elements of protracted displacement but when such displacement is examined more…

Sustaining local, regional and transnational family networks is a strategy that displaced persons use in order to cope in conditions of protracted displacement. These networks can help provide access to humanitarian aid, socio-economic resources, psychosocial support, and opportunities for mobility.…

Protracted displacement is often implicitly associated with passivity and immobility, and it is not by chance that protracted displacement is often described through the metaphor of ‘limbo’. But people living in protracted displacement are far from immobile. On the contrary,…

Humanitarian Admission Programmes (HAPs) can play an important role as ‘complementary pathways’ for refugees out of protracted displacement, as shown in initiatives by the German government and its federal states during the Syrian war. Such initiatives are particularly effective if…