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Delegation Reports
Seminar for Members of Parliamentary
Human Rights Bodies, Geneva, 24 to 26 February 2007
Seminar on Migration: the Human Rights Perspective, Geneva
Delegation
Jeremy Corbyn MP
Lord Judd
Lord Magginis
This seminar - organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the International
Labour Organisation (ILO) and the United Nations High Commission for Human
Rights - discussed the reality of life facing some 200 million people.
There were parliamentarians from 36 countries, with contributions to the
seminar made by academic experts, lawyers, and human rights activists.
The parliamentarians came mainly from Africa, some parts of South Asia
and Latin America.
Sadly, the European Nations were not well represented, and this is a matter
of regret and some degree of embarrassment.
I was elected rapporteur for the whole conference, and presented an agreed
statement at the end (accepted by consensus).
The seminar dealt with the real lives of the 200 million migrants around
the world, consisting of three per cent of the global population. Foreign-born
workers represent ten per cent of the workforce in many Western Europe
countries, 15 per cent in North America, and even higher proportions in
Africa and the Middle East.
The issue of their contribution to the global economy should not be underestimated.
This highly motivated workforce undertakes advanced technology work in
Western countries, picks fruit, cleans homes, runs restaurants, and in
many societies, undertakes the dirty jobs that nobody else wants to do.
The issues faced by the seminar were well presented by African delegates,
who graphically described the vortex of trade in justice, and environmental
disaster which induces poverty, and the difficulties their people face
in trying to migrate to Europe to work.
In common with delegates from Latin America, particularly Mexico, they
also outlined the enormous local economic contribution made by the remitting
of part, or in some cases, all of their earnings to families back home.
One of the almost unreported tragedies is the regular deaths of desperate
people trying to migrate from Central America to the USA, and from Africa
to Europe, and the accompanying deaths that so often occur in transit.
This is the tragic side of globalisation.
In Western societies, many migrant workers are forced to lead a transient
or semi-legal existence, which often means denial of access to health
care, education, or the criminal justice system.
They often become the most exploited workers, who in some cases are denied
basic things like the national minimum wage. Tragically, for some migrant
workers, they are virtual slaves and are grossly exploited, including
in the sex industry in all the major capital cities of the world.
The conference did recognise that there are some movements in the receiving
countries, to try to bring about recognition and justice for migrant workers,
such as the Mexican communities’ campaign in the United States,
and the British campaign of migrants into justice, and the very welcome
Gang Masters Act, which has helped some people. The seminar was concerned
to make some positive suggestions about ways forward.
Representatives called primarily for all IPU member groups to take a critical
look at themselves, and a look at the whole migration chain, and note
that migration flows are not just from the south to the north, but increasingly
within the south.
Parliamentarians have a duty and responsibility to recognise the positive
contribution made by migrants, and avoid descending into the xenophobic
stereotype that is the comfort zone of the narrow minded.
The role of parliament is to ensure that appropriate laws are passed,
but also to ensure that existing laws, conventions and treaties are upheld.
We therefore agreed that ILO conventions 97 and 143 should be ratified
by all countries in order to ensure basic labour rights for migrant workers.
We also called upon all countries to ratify the International Convention
on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of
their Families.
As well as these demands, delegates also pointed out that when conventions
are adopted, it is important that they be thoroughly enforced, and many
present expressed concern at the lack of adequate labour inspections of
places of work.
Parliamentarians remain determined to ensure that an international policy
framework exists through the ILO multi-lateral framework on labour migration.
Delegates gave examples of good practices that exist, including in the
Philippines, and of methods of encouraging migrant contributions into
infrastructure investment in poor communities such as Mexico.
Parliamentarians at the seminar spent three days intensively discussing
- and for the most part agreeing - that a rights-based approach to migration
is the way forward.
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