How the pandemics influenced migration, what are the multilateral solutions to migration, what is the life like in refugee camps in Greece, how does the migration situation in Afghanistan look like and what are the possibilities of legal migration and work mobility into the EU?

During the 8th EMN Educational Seminar on Migration – Migration in a Multilateral World 22 experts from 15 countries lectured also on these topics. The seminar was organized by the International Organization for Migration as the coordinator of the European Migration Network (EMN) in Slovakia on 24 – 26 August 2021 in an online format for more than 120 participants from 25 countries.

Virtual studio of the 8th EMN Educational Seminar on Migration. Photo © International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Among the participants there were representatives of state and public administration, state implementing authorities, embassies, intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organisations, think-tanks, academia, private sector representatives, independent experts and EMN members from other countries.

The seminar offered three public events. The first one, on 24 August, was an online discussion of experts from the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic, the Migration Office of the Ministry of Interior of the Slovak Republic and the IOM Slovakia entitled How Slovakia helps migrants and refugees?

The second event was a documentary film screening Midnight Traveler. The director documented on the mobile phone the journey of his family who was forced to flee under the threat of Taliban. Their uncertain odyssey to a safe place took several years.

On 25 August a Slovak premiere of a German film Gleis 11 focused on labour migration and told a story about the life of the first generation of work migrants in Germany – about their dreams, expectations, fears and about the reality they faced. After the film a pre-recorded interview with the film director Çağdaş Eren Yüksel followed.

More information on the seminar is available at www.emnseminar.sk.