GENEVA (10 September 2014) – The Rapporteur’s Report from the annual NGO Consultations of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is now available.

Each year UNHCR  hosts consultations with hundreds of civil society and NGO representatives from around the world.  This year more than 240 national and international NGO’s and over 460 participants convened in Geneva, Switzerland from June 17-19 at the International Conference Centre of Geneva to discuss the most pressing and important issues in the area of refugee protection.

The 2014 Rapporteur’s Report from these consultations indicates that immigration detention continues to be a relevant, cross-cutting issue of concern to UNHCR and refugee advocates.  In particular, the 2014 consultations report included a number of calls for greater access and transparency with regard to places of immigration detention.  To address this need, the IDC, in partnership with the Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT) and UNHCR recently released a guide for monitoring places of immigration detention.

 

“UNHCR, NGOs and other stakeholders should not only focus on monitoring, but make recommendations for changes to unlawful detention practices and challenging detention policies and practices themselves.” – UNHCR NGO Consultations, 2014

 

For more information on the work of IDC members and partners to access and monitor places of immigration detention, see the IDC’s Detention Database thematic page.