Border Violence Monitoring

BVM originated in 2016 when grassroot groups involved in humanitarian assistance in the region first became aware of the more and more systematic practice of violent push-backs at the EU external borders and began to document such cases. As grassroot initiatives usually have a big amount of knowledge about the illegal practices of European border guards but not necessarily the capacities to work on a consistent and profound documentation, BVM was initiated to collect and distribute this knowledge. From the beginning, we worked towards building a strong network committed to an exhaustive documentation of these human rights abuses happening at the doorstep of the European Union. In cooperation with our partners in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Greece we have developed a common framework for the recording of testimonials and supporting evidence which we publish on a website (www.borderviolence.eu). The database contains 506 case reports by now and serves as a basis of facts for advocacy work undertaken by us and others.

BVM understands itself as a network, whereby it originated from a working group of Rigardu e.V. and still uses the infrastructure of this association. Therefore Rigardu e.V., which is based in Germany, will be the official employer for the position offered. We are a young organisation and do not have any permanent employees yet, instead we currently all work on a voluntary basis.