Irregular Migration Prevention Campaign

IOM Georgia, with support from the Belgium Immigration Office, is implementing Irregular Migration Prevention Campaign. The main objective of this campaign is to discourage and prevent irregular migration by increasing the awareness of all downsides of irregular migration by addressing the misconceptions. The Irregular Migration Prevention Campaign seeks to increase awareness of the risks of irregular migration, focus on the advantages of regular migration and addresses the realities on the asylum procedures in Belgium (and other EU Member States).

Under the framework of the campaign IOM will organize competition in article production by journalists and essay writing contest for school children on the topic of asylum, safe migration and risks associated with irregular migration.

On 3 August 2016 the Kingdom Belgium included Georgia in a list of safe countries of origin together with Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia (FYROM), Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia and India. Georgia was declared as a safe country of origin by other EU Member States - France, Bulgaria and Austria. This implies that Georgia has been assessed as a safe country, where people (primary citizens of Georgia) do not face fear of persecution on the grounds of race, nationality, religion, political opinion and belonging to a particular group. International protection is not necessary for citizens of a country, included in the list of safe countries. Therefore, in general asylum applications filed by the nationals of Georgia will be considered to be unfounded by the above listed countries.

As part of the information campaign, the IOM, in cooperation with Georgian side has developed and printed a flyer, which was placed at the information stands at Tbilisi, Batumi, Kutaisi, Telavi, and Gori Public Service Halls.