ASGI, ActionAid, A Buon Diritto, Lucha y Siesta, Differenza Donna, Le Carbet, and Spazi Circolari have lodged an appeal with the Lazio Regional Administrative Court against the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI) over its recent funding to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for so-called assisted voluntary return programs from Libya to countries of origin. The preliminary hearing is scheduled for January 8
Nearly one million euros allocated for the execution of so-called voluntary return programs.
Behind this funding, which is justified as humanitarian, lie disguised expulsions that breach the principle of non-refoulement and fail to uphold the obligations to protect minors and survivors of trafficking, torture and gender-based violence.
On January 8, the Lazio Regional Administrative Court will rule on the request for a precautionary suspension of the funds earmarked for these repatriations.
Cooperation funds to stop migrants
The funding in question is part of a total of 7 million allocated for the “Multi-Sectoral Support For Vulnerable Migrants in Libya”.
For years, a portion of Italian funds allocated for development cooperation has been used to finance border externalisation policies aimed at preventing the arrival of migrants in Italy. Resources that should support the development of countries and protect the most vulnerable populations are instead being used according to a logic of deterrence and containment of migration flows.
The UN Special Rapporteur’s denunciation
The critical issues of these programs have been highlighted by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of migrants, who emphasized that a return can only be considered voluntary if it results from a free and informed choice, made in the presence of valid alternatives and without any form of coercion. However, the conditions in Libya make it impossible for consent to be genuinely free and informed: numerous returns take place from places of arbitrary detention where people suffer torture, sexual violence, and mistreatment. In such conditions, return is often the only way to escape these abuses, even though, in many cases, returning to the country of origin exposes individuals to the same conditions they fled from, such as gender-based violence, conflict, and systemic discrimination.
In 2022, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) openly questioned the voluntariness of returns from Libya and urged European States not to fund these programs in the absence of adequate guarantees regarding the respect for the non-refoulement principle.
Despite this, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAECI) has re-financed such measures, disregarding the recommendations and failing to properly assess the risks faced by migrants in Libya and their countries of origin. The MAECI has not provided information on the Libyan detention centers where such projects were carried out, nor the documents related to monitoring mechanisms and guarantees regarding human rights compliance in the implementation of the programs.
The Appeal of the Associations
Voluntary returns are a key component of the externalization of border policies: in response to the blocking of departures from Libya, achieved through Italian support for the so-called Libyan Coast Guard, these programs open forced mobility channels to the countries of origin, while simultaneously providing humanitarian legitimacy to cooperation with Libya.
Under the label of “voluntary return,” what are essentially “disguised expulsions” are taking place, through which individuals who would be entitled to protection are sent back to countries that are not safe for them.
For these reasons, the seven organizations involved in the appeal are calling for an immediate halt to the use of Italian funds for returns carried out by the IOM and for the funding to be declared illegitimate.
