Special projects

DignityFIRM is our second Horizon 2020 project – funded by the EU Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme – which aims to improve conditions for migrant workers experiencing (multiple) irregularities in five selected EU Member States and two associated countries. The project also aims to promote the dignity of these workers through safe and healthy working conditions. Labour markets from FARM (agriculture and food processing) to FORK (hospitality and delivery services) offer the clearest example of how important migrant workers are to communities. Through comprehensive qualitative and quantitative research and a context-specific approach, we seek to better understand the challenges. Subsequent findings will inform the development of tools and strategies to bridge the gap between policy aspirations and the reality of migrant workers experiencing irregularities on their own skin. We propose policy changes to support migrant workers’ access to rights and services while taking into account the welfare of the receiving communities.

Most recently, together with our project colleagues, we have obtained a major publication in The Lancet, the most prestigious journal in the medical field, with the potential to influence global health policies. In the commentary entitled ‘Narrative change for inclusionary health and migration policies’ we reflect on how the series of articles ‘Addressing migration and health inequity in Europe’ in The Lancet highlights the discrepancies between the ambitions of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and the real exclusion of many migrants from national health systems. Despite increasingly hostile rhetoric towards migrant people, we believe that UHC efforts must not only close the ‘implementation gaps’, but also challenge the narratives that fuel these discourses, with an intersectional approach.

In March 2024, the project SCUDI ‘SCuola di Diritti umani’ (Human Rights School) was launched, promoted by Cittadinanzattiva and CILD, ‘strategic litigation for the protection of migrants’ rights’. This is an innovative initiative aimed at strengthening the protection of migrants’ human rights in Italy.

SCUDI is a project funded by the European Commission in the framework of the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme (CERV), and aims at developing strategic litigation capacities as a key instrument for the implementation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union in the Italian national context. In recent years, discriminatory policies and practices have been consolidated in Italy, generating inequalities and exclusion of migrants and/or people with a migration background, with a greater impact on the most vulnerable, such as minors and women.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the redress mechanisms provided by EU law are poorly known and enforced, despite the fact that there are multiple areas of application for the protection of migrants’ rights.

The SCUDI project aims to overcome this situation of systematic violation of rights through an empowerment and capacity building action addressed to civil society organisations (CSOs) engaged in the defence of migrants’ rights. The main objective of the SCUDI project is to strengthen strategic litigation capacities as a key mechanism for the implementation of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights in Italy.

LITIS is a international project involving the Pro Refugiu Association (Romania), the University of Bucharest (Romania), the University of Salamanca (Spain) and the Italian Coalition for Civil Liberties and Rights (CILD – Italy). The LITIS project started in March 2024 and will run until December 2025, with financial support from the European programme Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV).

This project aims to improve the protection of the rights of persons with disabilities; to enable persons with disabilities to enjoy all the rights provided by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and those established by other European and international legislative instruments; and to facilitate access to effective legal protection through strategic litigation when persons with disabilities are subject to multiple and intersectional discrimination. The project aims to improve the knowledge of those working for civil society organisations, human rights institutes, equality bodies, guarantor institutions, including lawyers and other rights defenders, in relation to strategic litigation, the use of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and other EU and international legislative instruments, in order to protect the rights of people with disabilities. The project also aims to strengthen cooperation between national stakeholders to address multiple and intersectional discrimination affecting people with disabilities.

The project supports European efforts to promote an efficient system for protecting the rights of and assisting victims of crime by putting them at the centre of the justice system.

The overall objective of the project is to help ensure that the rights set forth in the Victims’ Directive are operational in practice at national and European level. The project is designed to address the key priorities mentioned in the EU strategy on victims’ rights (2020-2025): effective communication with victims; improving support and protection for vulnerable victims; and improving cooperation and coordination between stakeholders. This project aims to strengthen multidisciplinary cooperation between stakeholders in order to better protect victims’ rights when accessing the justice system, through the development and implementation of strategies and tools that can strengthen national and transnational cooperation. The project activities are addressed to 5 countries (Romania, Italy, Germany, Spain, Sweden). Its target groups are ministries, government agencies, courts, police corps, bar associations, bar associations, care providers, professionals (judges, prosecutors, lawyers, police officers, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, etc.), victims of crime and the general public.

In order to defend and expand civic space, ACCESS is an enabling project that aims to raise awareness on specific issues within the catalogue of fundamental rights and to further strengthen relations between partners and their cooperation with local CSOs. Using social media monitoring, ACCESS aims to develop communication and training guides on the topic of civic space and country-specific issues: migration (Croatia), active citizenship (Hungary), racism/anti-racism (Sweden) and the right to citizenship for people with a migration background (Italy). With three specific objectives, ACCESS aims to:

• increase partners’ skills and knowledge to replicate framing workshops for selected local CSOs;
• provide communication guidelines on context-specific issues to selected local NGOs; and
• to create an EU-wide online platform, the Civic Space Action Hub (CSAH), for rights defenders to facilitate collaboration.