PERCEPTIONS Country Report – Algeria

Algeria has acceded to multilateral international conventions enabling it to strengthen its legislative framework at two levels, the first concerning human rights and the second concerning workers’ rights: Human rights conventions (including e.g., The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women adopted in 1979 and ratified in 1996), conventions on workers’ rights (including e.g., Convention 89 on women’s night work (revised) of 1948), and country-specific conventions with France, Belgium, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Mauritania, Niger, and Mali.

More recently, due to its strategic location, Algeria has also become a transit centre for the circulation of people between the two shores of the Mediterranean. As such, Algeria became an important destination for people forced to seek asylum outside their country of origin. However, the irregular situation in which thousands of migrants find themselves in Algeria makes them vulnerable to many risks. Over the past years, several incidents and security threats involving migrants have been recorded, the most important ones involving clashes between migrants and local communities.