Portugal extends protection “to all people fleeing Ukraine and who have legally resided there permanently or temporarily and cannot return to their country of origin.”
Portugal’s granting of temporary protection to those who fled the war in Ukraine, including non-Ukrainians, is considered a “promising practice” in a report by the European Union’s Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) released Thursday. .
Following the directives of the European Commission that encourage Member States to consider extending the “temporary protection mechanism” to non-Ukrainian third-country nationals, Portugal extends it “to all persons fleeing Ukraine and residing there legally permanent or temporary and cannot return to their country. originally”.
“Implications of the war in Ukraine for fundamental rights in the EU”, which looks at how the Union and its Member States have dealt with the sudden influx of refugees from the conflict, is the main chapter of the FRA Fundamental Rights Report 2023, in relation to last year.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, “by the end of the year there were approximately 17 million border crossings from Ukraine to EU Member States, most of which were carried out by women and children,” the report said. report.
In total, almost four million people who fled the country at war enjoyed temporary protection in the Union at the end of the year, marking the first time the EU has activated this Directive since its adoption in 2001.
In Portugal, more than 59,000 temporary protections have been granted to people who have fled Ukraine since the invasion, including 14,190 minors, according to data released in early April.
Also in terms of information on “potential beneficiaries of temporary protection”, required by this Directive, Portugal appears alongside Austria, Slovenia, Greece and Romania in the reference to Member States that “intensified their efforts to inform and support” refugees. .
Regarding the main advances in the application of fundamental rights, analyzed in the remaining chapters of the report, this report points to “an interesting project in Portugal” for equality and non-discrimination.
This is the launch of a manual by the Ação Pela Identidade association aimed at journalists and other media professionals to help “in the correct use of LGBTQ+ terminology (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, ‘queers’ and other manifestations of gender )” and to “understand discrimination and deconstruct internalized stereotypes and prejudices”.
The European agency also catalogs as a “promising practice” the project of the Casa-Qui association, in alliance with the National Commission for the Promotion of Rights and Protection of Children and Youth, “Know to Protect: Good Support Practices LGBT Children and Youth”, an “online platform for sharing resources, support and consultancy in the field of education for children and youth”.
The chapter on “Racism, xenophobia and related intolerance” lists three cases of police violence in Portugal, which “may have involved racial and xenophobic discrimination”.
The first is that of the seven GNR soldiers “accused of beating migrants from Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan.” One of the soldiers was sentenced in January to six years in prison and the remaining six to a suspended sentence.
The second is that of “three policemen who will be tried for racially motivated assault against a woman in 2020”, the report also indicating that “in August 2022, the Public Security Police began an investigation after the dissemination of a video of two police officers assaulting a black man.”
Regarding good practices, reference is made to the signing in Portugal of “a cooperation protocol to combat racism and discrimination”, which provides for the implementation of pilot legal assistance projects in collaboration with civil society organizations , so that people at risk of racial discrimination better understand the laws that protect them, as well as the attempt to recruit elements of “underrepresented groups” by public security police and anti-racism training for police officers.
Regarding access to justice for women victims of gender violence, the proposal or approval in 2022 of new legislation is valued, as well as the modification of existing laws, expanding the scope of some crimes or increasing the penalties of several crimes. In the case of Portugal, this happened in relation to sexual harassment and cyber-violence, including so-called revenge pornography.
Referring to the Member States that have advanced in the application of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, it is indicated that “Portugal approved a strategy for the promotion of accessibility and inclusion in museums, monuments and palaces, adopted a regulations to increase the accessibility of festivals and began to carry out a program to improve the accessibility of homes” on the mainland.
The FRA Fundamental Rights Report 2023 covers all 27 EU Member States, as well as the Republics of Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia.
Source: Observadora
