GCM Statement: Migrants in Crisis Situations Around the Globe

Migrants in crisis situations around the globe:

Rights-based policy action urgently needed

 

(Download full statement in PDF-form here.)

 

GENEVA, 10 June 2015 – In recent weeks we have witnessed a heightening of migrant and refugee crises and the callous response of nations focused on blocking access and deterrence rather than upholding and respecting migrant and refugee rights and international law. These multiple sites of crises stem from conflict, persecution and economic need that reflect imbalances in global economic and political power resulting in flawed global development policies. They become deadly when nations refuse to provide safe and legal means for migrating.

The Mediterranean—site of massive tragedies and migrant deaths

The latest European Union proposals to deal with the challenge of migrants crossing and dying in the Mediterranean is full of stop-gap measures that will certainly stir greater anxieties while avoiding the messy business of addressing the reasons why people are desperately seeking safety and new homes across international borders. This proposal reflects a disturbing international trend of states’ “managing” migrants caught in crisis situations through greater migration enforcement, even while they tackle much-needed humanitarian needs.

Members of the Global Coalition on Migration (GCM) are outraged by the record numbers of migrants dying in the Mediterranean, a majority of whom are Sub-Saharan Africans attempting to escape the crises in Libya and Syria. We are also appalled by the flawed policy response by the EU, its member states, and other states. While rescue operations and humanitarian assistance are welcome, the EU’s decision this past month to triple resources oriented first for border enforcement and to focus on migrant smugglers, points to its major policy thrust. The EU has said it will launch a military operation to identify, capture and destroy boats used by smugglers, and is seeking the UN Security Council’s approval and support. This is a shameful slide from Italy almost singlehandedly doing search-and-rescue last year, to the whole of Europe choosing search-and-destroy this year.

But as the UN Special Rapporteur for the Human Rights of Migrants, Francois Crepeau, has said, overemphasizing the focus on smugglers is highly problematic. Smugglers flourish when immigration policy restrictions create their “market”: driving migrants and refugees desperate to move for survival—but with no legal ways to do so—to board unseaworthy boats in the hands of often dangerous and unscrupulous smugglers.

Cracking down on migrant smugglers reflects a view of migration as a crime and results in migrants experiencing even more crisis and abuse. It will also misdirect much needed resources and policy responses away from providing adequate rescue and relief.

Michele LeVoy, Director of the Europe-based Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), asserts, “Migration is not a criminal activity. Policy responses which treat it as such are ineffective and inappropriate and make migrants increasingly vulnerable to violence, exploitation and trafficking.”

Punitive measures dominate United States-Mexico border policies

Thousands of migrants have died in the US-Mexico border region, where access to safe migration is extremely limited and out of sync with rights to safety from violence and civil wars,the reunification of families, and the realities of people needing work, and labour markets needing workers. Mega-charged border enforcement programs, including expedited detention and deportations, family internment camps, the construction of border walls and the largest federal immigration enforcement agency in the world have not deterred migrants and refugee border crossers, but have made the passage increasingly dangerous and potentially fatal.

Large numbers of Central American children and their parents are once again arriving at the U.S. border, as they did last year, when nearly 70,000 unaccompanied children arrived. Yet, the US has relied on punitive measures, recently opening a large-scale “family” detention center in Dilley, Texas, in the face of opposition by local communities and rights groups.

Catherine Tactaquin, Director of the US-based National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, comments, “Migrant deaths in the Mediterranean and along the US- Mexico border are both tragic and painful. But this loss of lives can be prevented, and people can migrate safely across borders if only governments would act courageously and strategically. Providing visas that match rights and realities can save lives and end the criminalization of migrants.”

Migrants abandoned in the Indian Ocean

In recent weeks, thousands of Rohingya refugees fleeing persecution in their home countries have been left adrift in the Indian Ocean. Crackdowns on smugglers have resulted in the abandonment of boatloads of people at sea, and the refusal of countries in the region to allow them to land has left hundreds adrift in deplorable conditions. Those who have managed to make it to shore have been captured and sent to detention centres in Malaysia and Thailand with little respect for due process.

This marks yet another humanitarian crisis for migrants. For too long, ASEAN has failed to address the oppression and persecution of the Rohingya. There must be an immediate regional response to rescue those who remain at sea or in the hands and prison camps of smugglers, to guarantee non-refoulement, to provide status and safety, and to release those who have been unjustly detained in government centers. ASEAN must not continue to wash its hands of its responsibility to protect and uphold the human rights of all people, including the Rohingya.

In South Africa and elsewhere, economic desperation contributes to tensions

The xenophobic attacks on migrants in South Africa are both sad and disheartening. These stem from, and were exacerbated by, the underlying desperate competition for limited jobs and resources by migrants, interlaced with that of South Africans, both of whom already endure fragmented citizenships. This has resulted in such bloody battles for economic scraps made worse by attempts to divide “foreign” and “local.” Milka Isinta, Co-Chair of the Pan-African Network in Defense of Migrants Rights (PANiDMR), observed, “It is unfortunate that African governments are silent on this issue and not taking leadership in addressing the root causes of migration, nor developing policies to protect migrants within their borders.”

 

The GCM calls on states to uphold the human rights of migrants, and to immediately respond to such crises with robust rescue operations that address the immediate health and safety needs of migrants trapped in these situations, and ensure they can fully access their rights—including to longer-term assistance and protection for refugees, children, victims of torture, trafficking, trauma and violence. States should reverse courses of action that rely on flawed, punitive border enforcement measures and instead shoulder the responsibility to develop more safe and legal channels for migration as long term solutions, along the standards set forth in the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families. And states’ operations at such border zones should align with the Recommended Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights at International Borders as set forth by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

The GCM urges the states’ Migrants in Countries in Crisis (MICIC) Initiative to develop a broad set of Principles and Guidelines for states’ responses that lift up the saving of migrant lives, ensure migrant human rights, and prevents such crises situations for migrants.

Governments and civil society alike must have as a priority the safety, human rights and dignity of all migrants. We cannot afford to wait on disaster upon disaster to take humane action.

 

The Global Coalition on Migration – GCM is an international coalition of regional and international networks of migrant associations, migrants’ rights organizations and advocates, trade unions, faith groups, and academia, collaborating on international migration policy advocacy.

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