CONTEXT

Why do return programmes serve their purpose, even though they don’t work? What criticisms and demands do experts formulate?

Experts explain the trend towards return assistance in German and European refugee and migration policy. They discuss changes in counselling and ask what would be necessary for a truly voluntary and promising return. Above all, however, they take a stand by showing and describing how the support programmes in most cases bring about exactly the opposite of what they promise: a return in safety and dignity.

Ramona Lenz and Nina Violetta Schwarz, medico

Assisted return instead of deportation: Questionable alternatives

Valentin Feneberg, Integrative Research Institute Law & Society

Financed departure instead of development aid?

Elise Bittenbinder, BafF Chairperson

Counselling presupposes alternatives

Matthias Lehnert, Attorney at Law

An offer to sell the right to protection

Uwe Kekeritz, Member of the Bundestag

What prospects? What home?

Maximilian Pichl, jurisprudence scholar and political scientist

Calculated deprivation of rights

Sarmina Stuman, Afghan Refugees Movement

Immense pressure is applied

Nora Brezger, Berlin Refugee Council

The motive? Desperation!