iMPACT DOC

Regram 💛👇• ✉️ Send an email to Frontex! We're sending this mail below. Copy-paste, or rewrite it. 1 min work. ✉️

📬 to: [email protected]

¬ Subject: PROTECT CHILDREN ON THE MOVE

Happy Europe Day!

You organized a photo competition to ‘celebrate peace and unity across the EU’. We have some suggestions: violent border guards, minefields and meter-high fences, Frontex helping illegal push backs in the middle of the sea. That’s what refugees, among them unaccompanied children, experience every day in Europe.

Your organization is responsible for the border policy of the European Union. But instead of upholding our shared values, you are accused of illegal detention of refugees, illegal pushbacks, misconduct, intimidation and fraud. On May 5, 2021, the British newspaper The Guardian revealed that EU member states - supported by Frontex - are responsible for illegally pushing back 40,000 refugees, 2,000 of which have died.

But that does not prevent your organization from organizing a fun photo competition for snapshots taken during work. Your competition has sought to highlight ‘cooperation with local authorities’, ‘frontier landscapes’ and its ‘helping hand at the border’.

We know that underneath these pretty pictures, there exists a dark and disturbing reality.

Today, together with organisations and EU citizens across the continent, we are uncovering this ugly truth. As your organization undergoes extensive investigation for its involvement in the policy of pushbacks, we are calling on Europe - its citizens and leaders - to stand up for fundamental rights and the rule of law.

And we are calling on you to protect refugees and especially protect unaccompanied child refugees. If you want to know what your policies and cooperation with EU member states look like for them please watch the trailer of Shadow Game. If you want to organize a screening to educate your employees, please contact the Shadow Game team at [email protected]

https://vimeo.com/471353512

Best regards,

Eefje Blankevoort, Els van Driel, Zuhoor al Qaisi and the unaccompanied minors in the documentary Shadow Game

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