Letter to the editors: Introducing Jill Alpes, the new Coordinator of IRRI’s RiE programme’s Post Deportation Monitoring Network
As the new coordinator of IRRI’s RiE programme’s Post Deportation Monitoring Network, I would first and above all like to start by saying thanks for having entrusted me with this task. The network is a timely initiative and I am aware of how much work has gone into the network in the past. I am honoured and am looking forward to using my skills and contacts to further expand on the great work that has been done so far.
How did I come to the topic of post-deportation risks?
I am a legal anthropologist and currently a postdoc researcher at the migration law section VU Amsterdam and the Centre de Recherches Internationales (CERI) at Sciences Po Paris. During my last fieldwork research in Cameroon, I stumbled across return related risks for non-admitted travellers. I had the opportunity to observe exits controls at the international airports of Douala and Yaoundé and thus came to study the prosecution of Cameroonian citizens for the offence of “‘attempting to emigrate illegally.”’
From September 2014 until June 2015, I co-coordinated a group project at Sciences Po Paris that elaborated a country catalogue seeking to list countries where deportees and rejected asylum seekers can be subject to monetary extortions by state authorities, detention, imprisonment and/or physical violence upon return to their countries of nationality.
With the help of two colleagues, I have also been supervising three interns at the VU Amsterdam who are analyzing whether the vulnerabilities that deportees face in the hands of state authorities upon returning from EU member states to their countries of nationality can engage responsibilities on the part of the former.
Next steps:
We all have different profiles and strengths. Me being a Dutch researcher with German nationality, French residence and work experience in Cameroon and Vietnam, I should hope that my taking over the coordination of the network will enable us to give the network a truly European dimension. That is our first priority, but we will take every opportunity of strengthening our global reach at the same time.
As first steps, I propose to draw on my French and German contacts to expand on the list of organisations in countries of origin that are listed on the network’s website.
In September this year, I will be recruiting five students for a group project at Sciences Po Paris. The group project at Sciences Po Paris will be charged to help the Post-Deportation Monitoring Network strive with small, but concrete steps towards its three connected ambitions:
protect forced returnees by facilitating access to assistance post-deportation;
document and report post-deportation human rights violations;
advocate for policy changes and institutional support for the human rights of forced returnees (including deportees, rejected asylum seekers and non-admitted travellers)
I shall look forward to engaging and discussing with you any of the above suggested steps and activities.
Jill Alpes