GET #43 - UK-Rwanda Asylum Deal

The Greater European Talks

It was announced by British Home Secretary Priti Patel that the United Kingdom and Rwanda would form an "economic development partnership" in April 2022. However, this arrangement threatens the global refugee protection. It puts refugees at risk by removing any sense of control over their destiny and putting them in the hands of smugglers and traffickers.

The United Kingdom's controversial deal with Rwanda to relocate certain asylum seekers there as a permanent destination symbolises the next step in a broader policy push by some high-income countries to externalise migration management.

In this episode, our host Eylül Erva Akın posed important questions to Thomas Yaw Voets regarding the UK-Rwanda asylum deal. You'll hear about whether or not outsourcing asylum responsibility is in accordance with international human rights, how the UK immigrant population and British/international public respond to this deal, and much more. Sound engineered by José Ignacio Oliveros.

Thomas Yaw Voets is the Desk Officer of IGE's Human Rights Bureau, and an academic assistant in the field of European Union Law at the University of Antwerp. He has researched and worked on the themes of migration and Rwanda's (foreign) policy, both as a student and when working for a Member of the European Parliament.

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