Ángeles Schjaer, from Open Arms: "Human beings have normalized barbarity"

The coordinator of the Education Department of the humanitarian organization highlights the need to establish safe migration routes.

..
13/12/2024 - 16:14 h

Until the end of the year, the Casal Mas Guinardó is hosting the exhibition Open Arms. The Reality of the Mediterranean. Europe and Its Liquid Fortress, a photographic selection summarizing nine years of the organization’s missions. As a parallel activity, Ángeles Schjaer, coordinator of the Education Department of Open Arms, gave a talk in the same space to explain the NGO’s history and the challenges they face in their humanitarian work.
Schjaer began her speech with sharp questions about solidarity: “How can it be that we make distinctions between human beings? How can we open our arms to some people while closing the door to others who have also been forced to flee their homeland?” She emphasized that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrines the right to migrate and that “everyone has the right to leave their country and return to it,” a right that is currently “not being respected.” According to Schjaer, “people are being discriminated against based on their passports.”

She insisted on the need to “rethink the narrative around migration,” as “migration is not the problem; the problem is how it is portrayed.” In this regard, she highlighted the key role of awareness and education in combating prejudice. “No one boards a dinghy willingly or turns to smugglers for fun. When you reach this point, it’s because you’ve exhausted every other option,” she stressed.

The coordinator, who has been collaborating with Open Arms since its inception, pointed out that migration “is part of human essence since we first started walking.” However, she lamented that nowadays “we are facing major campaigns against people coming from certain countries” and that “it seems we no longer feel anything when we see terrible images of children with certain skin colors. Human beings have normalized barbarity.” For this reason, she called for a “reset to start anew.” “Closing borders is not a solution. We need to establish regular and safe migration routes,” she added.

Accompanying her speech with videos of rescues in the Mediterranean, Schjaer also discussed international agreements that further complicate the situation of migrants and emphasized that “currently, the Mediterranean is the most militarized sea in the world.” In this regard, she talked about the role of the military industry, which she described as “the main responsible for displacing millions of people.”

Regarding Open Arms, Schjaer detailed some of the actions they have carried out over the past nine years beyond emergency operations at sea, such as assisting the elderly during the COVID-19 pandemic, collaborating in humanitarian corridors, or more recently, searching for people missing at sea after the DANA storm in Valencia.

Access Open Arms children’s stories ‘Cuentos a la deriva’