Invisible Migrant-Workers and Visible Human Rights

Logo: PUST/Angelicum

[31.01.2021] In May, 2021, the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas ANGELICUM, Faculty of Social Sciences, Rome, and Institute M.-Dominique Chenu Berlin invite you to a one-day scientific video conference about "Social Solidarity in Europe. Labour Migrants from Eastern Europe for Western Europe".

Migrant workers are part of the everyday economic life of Europe. Today we find Ukrainian agricultural workers in Spain, Romanian workers in German meat factories, and Slovakian, Czech and Hungarian geriatric nurses assisting Austrian families - to name a few. Usually these workers are "invisible". Many of them are exploited both socially and economically. During their time of employment, they live in poverty level accommodations. Employee rights, such as hours or work breaks, have been ignored. During this time of COVID crisis these invisible migrant workers have become visible. The lines of exploitation often run between Western and Eastern Europe; but also occur between EU and non-EU states.

In order to uphold the dignity of the human person with humane conditions for migrant workers, the Church can advocate in the following ways:

1) To evaluate and critique legal or illegal existing conditions

2) To raise public awareness of the fate of migrant workers

3) To help with concrete proposals for improving the situation in the sense of a new social solidarity in Europe.

To this end, this research project examines concrete actions of European society's care of migrant workers in the light of Catholic Social teaching.

Call for papers: This  workshop in cooperation with various church and non-church institutions is open to interested professors and students. They are invited by 31 March 2021 to provide an abstract with a content of 250 words on selected topics. Please submit your abstract to szaniszlo@pust.it by 31 March 2021, indicating your name, position, and university. The abstract should not exceed 250 words in italian or english language. Each presentation will last 15 minutes. After submitting your abstract, you will receive an acknowledgement of receipt by e-mail within two working days. The abstract will undergo a double-blind peer-review process by a scientific committee of the conference and the results will be sent to the author by 11 April. If you do not receive an email from us, please set your spam filter to accept messages from szaniszlo@pust.it or contact us. After approval of the paper by the project organizers, it will be listed in the conference program and finally submitted by 20 June for its publication as Conference Proceedings of the CRISIS Project.

 

For more information please see the website of the symposium >>