Migrants' human rights and integration public policies in contemporary democracies

• Grant number: 16/08934-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: September 01, 2016
• End date: March 31, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - International Politics
• Principal Investigator: Peter Robert Demant
• Grantee: Augusto Veloso Leão
• Supervisor: Ilke Adam
• Host Institution: Instituto de Relações Internacionais (IRI). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium
• Associated to the scholarship: 13/20518-4 - Migrants' human rights and integration public policies in contemporary democracies, BP.DR

Abstract

The debate about migrant human rights shows that the universality of human rights is not an undisputed issue. Nowadays, there is much controversy about which rights are pertained primarily by national citizens of a country and which rights are to be guaranteed to all human beings. Therefore, universal rights and rights reserved to the country's nationals coexist in most modern political systems and, as a consequence, migrant populations who are deprived from their rights and from a positive social esteem are especially vulnerable to non-integration with the host society and have little chances to claim for advances for their situation. This research project aims at understanding some aspects of the migrant integration processes, focusing in the rights and the social esteem conceded to migrant populations and its impact in the integration of those people. It also interests us to analyse how each country organises itself in order to respond to possible claims from migrant groups targeting at improving their life conditions. We intend to work to the systematization of rights guaranteed to migrants in three countries, such as Brazil, Belgium, and United Kingdom, and search for a relationship between those rights and the integration of migrant groups in those countries. For this means, we will perform and analysis of the legislation and the entry, permanence and exit procedures for migrants and the observation of social and economic indicators to verify the situation of migrant populations in these countries. Similarly, we intend to analyse public policies aimed at migrant groups (e. g. income redistribution, promotion of health and education) to identify different government initiatives for the legal recognition of migrants and for the promotions of positive social esteem for these population. (AU)