Report for the Rights and Mobility of Black African Migrant Persons in Switzerland and in Europe
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Jean Dutoit Collective Report for the rights and mobility of black African migrant persons in Switzerland and in Europe First edition: November 2017. Second edition and English translation: August 2018. Published in Lausanne, Switzerland. ISBN 978-2-8399-2504-4 The Report is freely accessible on the Collective’s web page: http://collectifjeandutoit.wordpress.com, in the original French version and in English. You can also order hard copies or contact us by writing to us at the following address: [email protected]. | 2 Summary The Jean Dutoit Collective was born in Lausanne (Switzerland) in 2015 following the encounter between a hundred-odd individuals originating from West Africa and a group of Swiss citizens. This report is based on their testimonies, their experience in the field as well as research into the institutional, academic, journalistic and legal sources of the migratory phenomenon. With a focus on the situation of black African migrant men in Switzerland, this report attempts to place Swiss and European migration policies into a critical perspective. Although the Collective was founded with the aim of finding a roof for its African members – who were living and sleeping in the street for lack of available, suitable accommodation – it was immediately confronted with the political, social, economic and cultural dimensions that condition the existence of people who migrate to Switzerland and to Europe. Its members from a migrant background (residents of the house occupied by the Collective) and its Swiss members (who act as an interface with local society) have united their efforts over the course of the last two years to fight the discrimination and abuse targeting the former and thus to create viable alternatives. This report contains three parts that reflect three major stages in our research: Why and how did the African men who currently form the Jean Dutoit Collective end up in Lausanne? In what way does the formation of the Collective, and its ensuing developments, constitute a response to the precarization and immobilization these individuals experience within Swiss and European societies? What forms of discrimination, impairment of rights, abuse and persecution target these persons, and how can we understand these phenomena in order to combat them? In the first part, we lead an investigation into the migratory journeys of the members of the Collective. By leaving their homes in Africa, over land – because of the stricter visa policies that entered into effect in European countries during the 80s and 90s – they made their way through different countries and were forced to negotiate modes of survival that would fend off threats against their integrity. In Europe, they became captive of the EU’s immigration and asylum policies: from 2008 in the context of the economic crisis, then from 2014 in that of the migration crisis. In Switzerland, some made their way through the administrative apparatus of the asylum process. Their asylum plea having been rejected, they wound up in the hands of the canton’s emergency aid program, a dehumanizing process which they were forced to leave in order to avoid its next logical step: forced expulsion. Ending up on the street – through a lack of suitable structures but also because of an evident absence of political will – they lived on the margins, within the informal circuits of trans-European migrant workers. To describe these resulting situations, we use the term standstill: immobilized in reception centers and camps – where they either undergo pressures aiming to make them leave, or are simply forced to do so – or socially excluded and stigmatized because of the absence of recognition of their fundamental rights by European nations, these persons experience further forms of dehumanization as the standstill continues. Hence the creation of the Jean Dutoit Collective. In the second part, we examine the Collective’s two years of existence in a narrative and critical exploration of its relationship with the society and authorities of Lausanne on the one hand, in parallel to its internal evolution and the strategies that the Collective implemented in order to reach S u m m a r y | 3 its goals on the other hand. How does one find a roof for a hundred-odd people? Under what conditions? With what consequences? With the authorities displaying their desire to avoid the creation of unauthorized settlements (“lieux de fixation”) and refusing to recognize that these standstills are actually the result of inadequate policies, the Collective was faced with the imperative to remain mobile and activate new forms of convergence. This second part concludes with an overview of cooperative and inclusive accommodation, considered as an alternative to the current practices of the Swiss state, which concentrate migrant persons together while separating them from the rest of the population, producing situations of exclusion. In the third part, we identify the sufferings, persecutions and discriminations undergone by migrant persons in Switzerland (in particular black African migrants), working from the testimonies of members of the Collective. In order to comprehend their breadth and character, we cross- reference these testimonies with Swiss and international institutional reports, as well as recent inquiries led by sociologists and political scientists. We specially discuss anti-black racism and the relationship between xenophobia, migration and the rise of nationalism, as well as the phenomenon of the European “migratory crisis”. Through the prism of exclusion and precarization, we question the activity of cocaine and cannabis dealing in Lausanne: the market and its actors, the concentrated repression targeting street sellers, the stigmatization and criminalization of African and black migrants that follows, at the crossroads of the fight against illegal drugs and Switzerland’s policies of forced expulsion. We then concentrate on racial profiling – understood as State racial discrimination –, a concept which allows us to highlight certain underlying social issues and provides the necessary bases to conceptualize suitable measures for combating racism. Finally, we report and analyze the violence and abuses of power carried out by certain police officers against migrant persons, which continue to go unpunished to this day. After having shown how the organization of the legal institutions in Switzerland makes it almost completely impossible to file complaints against these practices, we plead for the creation of independent and neutral instances in each Swiss canton for the filing of complaints and pressing of charges concerning police brutality and abuses of power. We end by denouncing the treatments experienced in situations of custody, in prisons and administrative detention centers in Switzerland, where migrant persons are criminalized and deprived of their rights. In the conclusion of this report, we inscribe several recommendations aiming to resolve the violence, exclusion and discrimination of which the members of the Collective, as well as many others, continue to be victims in Switzerland, in situations that deprive them of their rights. These recommendations represent thresholds to overcome and stem from a will to contribute to the elaboration of short-, mid- and long-term solutions. We maintain that a policy of cooperation and mobility, via a strategy of access to rights and the institution of several legal and structural transformations favoring the State of law and democracy, would be the first step in instigating lasting change. In short, our recommendations are as follows: FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS: It is primordial to establish a relationship of cooperation with migrant persons present on the Swiss territory, based on providing access to rights, with a view to finding suitable constructive solutions in a non-discriminatory manner. Access to free movement, food, housing, employment, a stable status and family life (among other things), for all migrant persons. S u m m a r y | 4 COOPERATIVE HOUSING AND MOBILITY: The current strategy of imprisonment and segregation precarizes and stigmatizes migrant persons. It prevents the emergence of positive social, cultural and economic developments. Establish a strategy of cooperative, supportive and inclusive housing. These places should be situated within urban conglomerations and function through exchanges and activities directly involving civil society and the economy. Create a federal network for hospitality, mobility and the fostering of relationships, that would eventually replace the current policy of administrative detention, immobilization and expulsion. DE-PRECARIZATION: The emergency aid accorded to rejected asylum seekers forbids them from finding employment and creates situations of standstill. Moreover, low-threshold services are very unequally distributed on the Swiss territory and insufficiently endowed, thus producing concentrations, exclusions and a growing precarization that create catch-22 situations. Asylum emergency aid should become compatible with salaried employment. Create a continuum of low-threshold services throughout the cities of Switzerland. Emergency shelters should be declared sanctuary zones regarding migration policies. We support the motion for Lausanne to become a sanctuary city, as well as the creation of a municipal identity card in Lausanne. We ask for a night-time truce to be declared on the entire territory of the Lausanne conglomeration, and that persons may no longer be fined for unauthorized