The criminalization of NGOs- A promising “scapegoat”?
The criminalisation of NGOs is a peculiar phenomenon that has become more common in the last decades. The reasons behind this trend are of geopolitical and political nature.
The criminalisation of NGOs is a peculiar phenomenon that has become more common in the last decades. The reasons behind this trend are of geopolitical and political nature.
Paid sex in Spain has remained in a legal limbo until the recent proposal of the Comprehensive Law Against Trafficking, proposed by the governing Socialist Party of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. In 1995, prostitution was depanelized as a voluntary activity, leading to an unregulated and very successful establishment of the sex industry since then. In fact, not only is Spain the European country with the highest demand for sex, but is also third internationally. This lack of jurisdictional model has been criticised by different actors for its lack of a comprehensive approach towards sex workers and the facility it offers to mafias to coerce and exploit victims into the industry.
Malta has used numerous methods including ones that can be classified as illegal to deter migrants. The European Union needs to step up and ensure that the responsibility for the migration crisis in the Mediterranean Sea does not fall only on a few member states.
Dubioza Kolektiv, a popular Bosnian avant-garde group would say – or rather, sing – that Bosnia-Erzegovina is in Europe “just in Eurosong”. By that, meaning that the country is only welcome as a full-fledged member of Europe when this benefits the image of a multicultural, welcoming continent. But when the lights of Eurovision go off, Bosnia is likely to disappear from the public discourse. If anything, it may come up in conversations simply as the place where “there once was a war”.
In part, this is understandable. How is it possible that a European country could be majority Muslim? Why does it stubbornly refuse to behave like a “normal” democracy? And yet, no matter how divided or unstable, Bosnia is clearly a member of the wobbly, colorful European family.