The Obligation to Undress and the Destruction of Personal Belongings: The Lesser Evil
- Anna Brambilla, Ivana Stojanova, and Amarilda Lici
- Jul 1, 2024
- 29 min read
Updated: Jul 6
1. The Obligation to Undress and the Destruction of Personal Property: Related Violations
1.1. Evidence of Confiscation and Destruction of Migrants’ Personal Belongings Denounced by International Organisations, Bodies, and Non-Governmental Organisations
The requirements for migrants to undress and the destruction of their personal belongings—including documents and mobile phones—by border guards and Frontex [the European Border and Coast Guard Agency] agents, at both internal and external borders of the EU, has been a subject of reporting and condemnation by various international organisations and institutions for several years.
The Fundamental Rights Agency of the European Union (FRA), in its 2020 report on the external borders of the EU, exposed severe violations of migrants’ human rights, including the confiscation and arbitrary destruction of personal effects. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) has also repeatedly condemned the seizure and destruction of personal belongings of individuals forcibly returned from Greece to Turkey.[1]
The report titled ‘Beaten, Punished, and Pushed Back’ by the Protecting Rights at Borders (PRAB) network, published in January 2023, reveals that the people fleeing persecution or serious harm and in search of protection, attempting to enter the EU via the Bosnian-Croatian border over the past years, have faced denial of access to asylum procedures, arbitrary arrest or detention, physical abuse or mistreatment, and theft or destruction of property.[2] In a testimony of July 2022 provided by two individuals from Bangladesh, it was stated:
We continued walking through Croatia and at around four in the afternoon, we descended from one hill towards a water stream. That is when we heard dogs barking nearby […] and then silence […] so, we drank water and refreshed. After five minutes, we heard and noticed a drone flying above us, and then almost immediately some 20-30 police officers surrounded us. They caught all 16 of us, no one escaped, and not anyone even tried to. […] They asked if we had phones, power banks, money, or anything in our possession. We had to put everything in a bag, and another row of police searched us and took anything that they would find, even lighters or paper bags. […] We asked for water and for our phones, but they refused to give them to us.[3]
Furthermore, the report highlights that the destruction of personal belongings, particularly telephones and SIM cards, is also occurring at the Polish-Belarusian border. The refugees faced robbery by Belarusian border officials as well. These persistent abuses have been extensively documented in a policy note published in December 2021 by the PRAB network. The note asserts that the confiscation and destruction of migrants’ documents and personal property at European borders serve dual motivation (‘ensuring evidence is destroyed, and lucrative purposes’) and takes different forms. As the note states:
