Across Europe, how we deal with migration in media, policy and in practice, shapes not only who may enter or stay, but also how millions live, wait, and return. Unseen Lives traces the human realities behind bureaucratic borders: from life without papers, to confinement in detention, to the uncertain homecomings of return.
To live undocumented in Europe is to exist in a fragile state between belonging and erasure. Scholars describe this as “hyper-precarity” – when a person’s life is extremely insecure and they have almost no safety, rights, or stability. People in this situation have almost no protection or support from the government or society. They often are not allowed to work, lack residence papers, healthcare or safe housing. Because of this, they can easily be exploited.
Those who are detained face another form of invisibility: confinement without crime. Across the continent, immigration detention centres operate as hidden infrastructures of exclusion. Research shows detention functions as a visible and structural form of injustice, causing serious psycho-social, medical, legal, and even mortal harm.
For those who have returned to their country of origin, whether voluntarily or by force, the struggle often continues. Reintegration is treacherous and not adapted to the needs of those returning: they may face extreme exclusion, stigma and poverty.
These stories show the quiet perseverance of people navigating systems that were never designed to see them. Unseen Lives invites you to look beyond the statistics and confront the shared humanity of those who move, wait, and begin again in the shadows of Europe’s migration landscape.
A note to our readers: This booklet contains photographs and testimonies that depict experiences of confinement, displacement, and hardship. Some images and stories may be distressing. In preparing this booklet, we followed a rigorous ethical process to ensure that all participants were given the opportunity to provide informed consent for the use of their stories and photographs as part of the FAiR project. Every effort was made to mitigate potential risks and uphold the highest ethical standards. Participants were fully informed about the potential risks of using identifiable photographs and explicitly consented to their use for research and visibility purposes. To protect the identity of those who have shared their stories, some names and locations have been altered, unless the participants explicitly asked for their name to be used.
