RIGHTS: U.N. Lacks Support for Proposed Migration Conference

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 14 2001 (IPS) - The United Nations is on the verge of abandoning a longstanding proposal for an international conference on migration and development because it lacks support from member states.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan has complained that only 78 out of the UN’s 189 member states have responded at all to three appeals he has made since 1995, soliciting support to hold the conference.

Of the 78, he says, 47 were “generally in favour” of convening the proposed conference while 26 were opposed to it. Another five countries have expressed “partial support.”

Senior U.N. officials say the results mean Annan likely will recommend that the conference be abandoned.

Although none of the countries has been identified by name, U.N. sources tell IPS that most of the migrant labour-dependent nations in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Western Europe stand opposed to the conference for what one official calls “selfish reasons.”

“Clearly, they don’t want a conference because it would not only raise issues concerning the exploitation of migrant labour but also consolidate the rights of expatriate workers”, he says.

Countries that rely heavily on migrant labour include Germany, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan, Malaysia, and Singapore. The main suppliers include Mexico, the Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Morocco, Egypt, and Turkey.

The proposed conference’s agenda likely would include issues deemed sensitive by many countries. These include xenophobia, sweatshops, sexual and other violence against female workers, the right to family reunion, and minimum wages.

Annan, in a 15-page report to be presented to the General Assembly when it holds its next session beginning in September, says that the 26 governments that have registered their opposition to the proposed conference share the view that “international migration and development issues had already been the object of discussions in several U.N. conferences.”

In addition, “a number of governments expressed serious reservations about convening such a conference, given the current financial constraints of the United Nations,” he says.

The United Nations has held seven major world conferences since 1990, at what its Department of Public Information calls a “quite modest” range of between 1.8 million dollars and 3.4 million dollars each.

The only exception was the 1992 Earth Summit, which cost the world body some 10 million dollars.

The host country usually bears the bulk of the cost – covering conference facilities, security, local staff, travel and hotels for U.N. staff.

Annan says that over the past decade, the mobility of people crossing borders has increased in magnitude and complexity.

At the height of the Cold War, migrants and refugees were mostly seeking haven in Europe for political reasons. But in the post- Cold War era, most of the legal and illegal migrants are economic refugees from developing nations, the former Soviet republics and Eastern Europe.

“International migration is now considered a global phenomenon involving a growing number of states as origin, recipient or transit countries of migrants, and it has become an issue of growing concern to the international community,” Annan says.

Support for the conference remains weak despite urging from officials including Carol Lubin, of the Geneva-based International Labour Organisation (ILO), which points out that growing numbers of women are migrating for economic reasons in hopes of finding better employment and often fall prey to exploitation. The agency says new standards and policies are needed to cope with the changing face of migration and the labour and human rights abuses that it spawns.

Past attempts to promote and protect migrant workers’ rights have not fared very well.

Only 16 countries have ratified the International Convention on the Protection and Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families since the U.N. General Assembly adopted it in 1990. These are: Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cape Verde, Colombia, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Mexico, Morocco, the Philippines, Senegal, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Uganda, and Uruguay.

The convention needs 20 ratifications to become international law.