Border Violence Monitoring Network

Founded in 2016, the Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN) is a network of NGOs and associations mainly based in the Balkans region, which works to monitor and stop human rights violations at the external borders of the European Union. This includes pushbacks: measures, sometimes involving third countries or non-state actors, which result in migrants and refugees being summarily forced back, without an individual assessment of their human rights protection needs, to the territory or sea from where they attempted to – or did – cross an international border. Pushbacks violate international law and are often accompanied by violence, humiliation and abuse. BVMN documents pushbacks and other human rights violations and uses this research in litigation as well as advocacy at the national, regional and international levels.