Torture, Structural Violence and Migration

Abstract

This essay highlights that torture has become a structural element of the migratory experience in most of the world, especially as a result of the worsening of the conditions of migration and the torture crisis. Considering several contexts (Central America-US, Balkans, North Africa), this essay examines the factors underlying such processes and points out that mistreatment of migrants is related to the tightening of migration policies and the escalation of institutional racism, which – with securitisation policies, politics of fear, hyper-detention, theories on the criminal law of the enemy – favour contexts permeable to violence towards migrants.