Refugees on their Journey into the Unknown: The Right to Access Asylum, Protection and Assistance in Europe and Germany
Date: November 10, 2014
Time: 14:00
Place: santralistanbul Campus, E2-104
The seminar is organized by İstanbul Bilgi University Center for Migration Research in the context of Silvia Oitner’s Erasmus Exchange for Lecturers.
Facing a period of crisis and refugee flows all over the world, but especially being confronted with the crisis in Syria and the region, the pressing question of states’ responsibility to protect and assist refugees became more urgent. At the moment Turkey as well as other neighbouring countries is hosting most of the people that needed to flee the war-torn areas. Although, due to recent events, the question concerning refugee protection is talked and discussed about more in public and media, the issue had been on the agenda of various state and non-state actors throughout Europe and its border countries for a long time. Does Europe assume responsibility for refugees? How is it possible for refugees to apply for asylum in Europe? What’s Frontex, what’s the Dublin or EURODAC system and why does it matter? And why would Turkey bother about the EU-system in place?
While the first part of the lecture will focus on the international and European law in place, the second part of the lecture will concentrate on the situation of refugees and their right to access protection and assistance in Germany, Berlin. Furthermore the necessity to assume responsibility as civil society and especially as university will be outlined and the cooperation between the Alice Salomon University of Applied Science and the refugee shelter in Berlin, Hellersdorf put forward. What can and shall educational institutions do in order to react adequately to contemporary questions such as global migration and flight and where are the limits of a political motivated mandate? Finally these questions shall lead over to a mutual discussion, linking the speech with contemporary questions on ground.
Silvia Oitner:
Silvia Oitner has a Maga (FH) degree in Social Work and an M.A. degree in Intercultural Conflict Management. She is scientific researcher at the Centre for Innovation and Quality in Studies and Research at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Science for Social Work, Education and Health. She lectures on studies of Social Work at Alice Salomon University of Applied Science and Management Centre Innsbruck. Oitner is also a member of an NGO Network in Germany against Trafficking in Human Beings.
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