While AVR is clearly preferable to deportation, NGOs and academics alike have criticised these schemes for being misleadingly labelled and lacking genuine voluntariness.

Detention and deportation (Forced Migration Review 44)

FMR 44 Assisted voluntary return schemes

Asylum seekers and refugees – men, women and even children – are increasingly detained and interned around the world, as are numbers of other migrants. Sometimes detained indefinitely and often in appalling conditions, they may suffer not only deprivation of their liberty but other abuses of their human rights too. Detention may appear to be a convenient solution to states’ political quest to manage migration (often as a precursor to deportation) but it is an expensive option and has lasting effects on those detained. In the search for a more humane – and cheaper – approach, agencies and government authorities have trialled a variety of alternatives to detention. FMR 44 includes 36 articles on immigration detention, alternatives to detention, and deportation, plus a mini-feature on the Syria crisis and a selection of other articles. See more at: http://www.fmreview.org/detention

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Detention and deportation (Forced Migration Review 44)