Tunisia’s treatment of migrants and the EU’s quiet deal: a test of values
For three years, human rights researchers listened to stories that should have set off alarms across Mediterranean capitals: men and women beaten and detained without charge, people stripped of their documents and pushed toward unsafe borders, and Black migrants singled out for abuse. The accounts, collected from 120 refugees and migrants from nearly 20 countries, form the backbone of a new Amnesty International report that accuses Tunisia of “widespread human rights violations” and the European Union of risking complicity through its migration cooperation with Tunis.
- Advertisement -
The report is as much about what is happening on Tunisia’s shores as it is about a broader geopolitics of migration management. It raises hard questions: when does outsourcing border control become outsourcing responsibility for rights abuses? And what happens to fledgling protections for refugees when a transit country shifts toward securitization and xenophobia?
What Amnesty found
Amnesty’s investigators documented patterns that human rights lawyers call hallmark violations of international law: arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence, racial profiling and forcible expulsions to countries where people face grave danger — actions that can breach the principle of non-refoulement. That principle, central to refugee law, forbids sending people back to places where they may face persecution or harm.
The testimonies are stark. A man from Sub-Saharan Africa interviewed for the report described being held in a facility without access to a lawyer, beaten until he signed documents he could not read. A woman recounted sexual violence at the hands of security personnel. Multiple witnesses said officials forced them into buses or boats and handed them over to authorities in neighbouring countries without assessing their protection needs.
Beyond individual violations, Amnesty says Tunisia’s authorities have fostered xenophobic sentiment and dismantled safeguards that once protected refugees and asylum seekers. The picture is not limited to isolated cruelty; it points to systems and incentives that make abuse more likely.
The EU’s role: money, silence and risk of complicity
European governments have long sought to curb irregular migration by partnering with transit countries across North Africa. That strategy intensified after the 2015 migration crisis that brought thousands of people to European shores. Tunisia, a country of 12 million people perched across the Mediterranean, has become a key node in that approach.
Amnesty’s report sharply criticises the EU for continuing to fund Tunisian border control and for failing to use its leverage to prevent abuses. The group urges Brussels to suspend migration cooperation and funding until reliable safeguards are in place. That demand is not just rhetorical: the European Union has no shortage of levers — financial aid, training programmes, visa access and political influence — all of which can be conditioned on respect for human rights.
Critics argue that Europe has chosen to trade its professed values for short-term border stability. The result is a policy that externalizes enforcement — pushing people back to states less able or willing to protect them — and that risks enabling human rights violations through funding, equipment and training that are not monitored closely.
Why this matters globally
Tunisia’s case fits into a broader trend: governments from Libya to Turkey, and from countries in West Africa to Southeast Asia, are increasingly tasked with policing movement on behalf of wealthier states. Where oversight is weak and incentives reward deterrence above protection, abuses are predictable.
Racial dynamics also loom large. Amnesty’s findings emphasise that Black migrants have disproportionately borne the brunt of violent pushbacks and expulsions. That reflects a wider global pattern in which migration control intersects with racism, leaving already marginalised people more vulnerable to state violence.
There are political reverberations, too. Tunisia’s democratic experiment — heralded after the 2011 Arab Spring — has frayed in recent years amid a concentration of power, economic strain and a shrinking civic space. In such contexts, migrants are an easy scapegoat and border security an appealing show of authority. The combination can hollow out protections faster than international law can respond.
What can be done — and what Europe must decide
Amnesty proposes a clear remedy: halt migration cooperation and funding until effective human rights safeguards are guaranteed. For Brussels, that would be a painful choice. EU capitals worry that cutting ties could lead to more departures across the Mediterranean; yet staying the course risks washing European hands of responsibility for abuses it helps enable.
Practical steps could include rigorous, independent monitoring of detention centres; suspension of funds tied directly to border-policing activities; and a clear mechanism to assess and act on allegations of pushbacks and refoulement. European courts and parliaments could also demand transparency over what funds are used for — not least because citizens in many member states expect governments to uphold human rights abroad.
Questions for readers and policymakers
- How should democratic societies balance short-term border management goals with long-term commitments to human rights?
- When aid and cooperation risk enabling abuse, who should be held accountable — the governments receiving the aid, the donors, or both?
- And finally, what does it say about Europe’s moral standing if policies intended to prevent irregular migration actively expose people to grave harm?
Amnesty’s report is a reminder that migration is not just a technical problem to be managed; it is a human issue that tests the laws, loyalties and moral commitments of states. The question now is whether Europe will treat the findings as an inconvenient truth to be managed from a distance, or as a call to change course and insist that security never come at the price of basic human dignity.
By Newsroom
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
