Public Lecture on The Current Issues of Migration in Bulgaria

Radoslav Stamenkov, Head of Mission of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Bulgaria delivered a public lecture in the Ceremonial Hall on the Current Issues of Migration in Bulgaria. The meeting was organized by the National and Regional Security Department, Economic Sociology Department and the Center for Strategic Researches in Defence and Security at UNWE.

The migration is an actual topic especially in the last years, pointed out the lecturer. He examined the migration in historical aspect and spoke on its development since the Great Migration of People (IV-IX century) until today when “about a milliard people or one seventh of humanity is moving”. Stamenkov specified all kinds of migration and emphasized in details on the forced migration and its driving mechanisms, major factors, demographic imbalances, etc. He prognosticated that the forced migration would increase and the migration pressure to Europe and Bulgaria would also grow.

The lecturer Radoslav Stamenkov

Radoslav Stamenkov revealed to students the IOM mission and vision, detailed the work by facts and numbers and specified the current tasks. Now 151 countries are members of the International Organization and it works for the establishment of humane and regulated relations between the migrants and governments. It is implemented by providing services and advices to both parties. The migrants who we support are people driven away by the military conflicts as it has happened many times over the years as well as victims of floods and other weather disasters, pointed out Stamenkov. We give them assistance whether they are in the countries of their final destination or on their transit way. We assist also those of them who wish to return to their homeland.

In the Ceremonial Hall

At the public lecture attended also Prof. Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov, Head of the National and Regional Security Department and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Andrey Nonchev, Head of the Economic Sociology Department (in the picture below).

Questions by the students