The project originated on the basis of the study “International migration and the Czech Republic“ which mapped the current situation in migration in the Czech Republic from the point of view of the concerned governmental and non-governmental institutions and the academic community.
The programme aims at complex improvement of the living situation of the foreigners living in Czech Republic for some longer period. The target group does not contain azylum-seekers and tourists. And of course it cannot contain illegally residing migrants either.
Another group of foreigners, which are in fact no more „foreigners“ , are the EU-citizens, citizens from the countries of European Union. Due to the Accession of CR to EU (free movement of persóna) they will have in many fields the same rights as Czech nationals.
The foreigner, we occupy ourselves with, is a typical labour migrant, coming from Central or Eastern Europe, or from other continents, or a person planning to study i Czech Republic or a person wanting to live in CR on grounds of family reunification.
It is a joint project of the Multicultural Centre Prague, the benevolent society People in Need, and our Centre.
It contains of 3 parts.
A) The web part
B) The media part
C) The legal part.
Ad A) Multicultural Centre Prague developed the internet portal Migration Online (www.migraceonline.cz, the English version of this web portal is www.migrationonline.cz), intended to provide comprehensive information service over the internet for organisations dealing with migration; currently, legislative documents and non-legislative texts, expert studies, and data bases of research efforts and NGO projects carried out in the Czech Republic in the area of migration are published on the server.
Ad B) People in Need, associated with the public TV service Czech Television, has implemented the media part of the programme, aimed at providing objective information in the media about the phenomenon of migration in the Czech, European and global context, and explaining its consequences for Europe and the Czech Republic. Combating the hidden or even open xenophoby of the newscast.
Ad C) Our Centre has inter alia elaborated a Comparative legal study in an attempt to improve the legal status of aliens in the Czech Republic through relevant laws and regulations.
In any Czech public debate, the argumentation how is the respected problem solved in the West ( that means in the states of EU or in USA), is very important. Therefore, we must bring evidences of positive legislative approaches in Western countries towards foreigners.
An expert team reviewed legislation concerning the rights of aliens in 8 different fields: ( employment, education, social security, health insurance, access to goods and services, politecal rights and availability of Czech citizenship for foreigners.
We searched out liberal and positive concepts of aliens‘ rights that the Czech Republic might draw on. The resulting document, A legal comparative study produced under the Migration programme, examines which laws and regulations stipulate different rights and duties for foreigners than for Czech citizens, poses the question of whether such differences are justified or discriminatory, and compares these pieces of legislation concerning aliens‘ rights with similar ones in other European countries. The study serves as a source of inspiration for the NGO sector.
The Comparative legal study of the Migration Programme is now being amended and updated by further chapters and analyses, mostly with regard to changes of Czech Alien legislation due to the accession of Czech Republic into the European Union.
Recently there was completed an overview of Italian legislation on aliens.
