IOM calls for greater efforts at dealing with environmental migration

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Friday, 18 December 2009, 9:21 GMT
Source: http://news.myjoyonline.com/news/200912/39488.asp

Greater efforts are needed beyond Copenhagen to tackle the complex issue of environmental and climate-induced migration, says the International Organization for Migration (IOM) as it marks International Migrants Day today.

As world leaders attend the final day of the UN’s Climate Change Conference in the Danish capital to consider signing up to a global deal on climate change that may or not acknowledge its impact on migration and displacement, the reality is that climate change and environmental degradation are already triggering migration or displacement all over the planet. In particular, it is the world’s poorest countries that are bearing the brunt.

Major gaps in knowledge and understanding exist on how best to deal with the many complex repercussions of environmental migration.

“No-one really knows just how many people are already migrating voluntarily or are forced to do so because of climate change or environmental degradation. What we now know is much of this migration is largely internal or cross-border and that it is a growing trend,” says IOM Director General William Lacy Swing.

Growing migration pressures resulting from the effects of climate change add to the urgency of tacking existing challenges of migration management. “Ensuring effective protection of the human rights of all migrants, including environmental migrants, and provision of adequate assistance to vulnerable people on the move will continue to be one of the key priorities of IOM. Working together with our partner agencies in the Global Migration Group and beyond, we will also continue to work on reducing forced migration as much as possible, to ensure that when migration happens it is by choice,” Mr. Swing added.

A recently published IOM report states that most migration already occurring as a result of environmental factors is internal. Several Asian countries, for example, are struggling to cope with the mass of rural-urban migration as recurrent floods destroy agricultural livelihoods and supplies and force people to move to over-stretched urban areas, with dramatic consequences for infrastructure, public services and health.

Slow-onset environmental degradation generates less attention than extreme climatic events such as floods and storms, yet globally 1.6 million people were affected by droughts between 1979 and 2008, more than double the number affected by storms, with Africa especially vulnerable.

Migration is already playing a significant role as a coping mechanism in these contexts. Mali, for example, is witness to internal migration from the country’s north to its south and to regional migration towards coastal areas of West Africa as a spontaneous adaptation strategy to drought, alleviating stress on one fragile eco-system but transferring it to another.

While some National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) produced by Least Developed Countries to adapt to climate change include references to migration, more can be done to strengthen the role of migration in the adaptation context.

“We all know that there is no single solution to the challenges of climate change. We need to use all the tools at our disposal, and migration is one of them. It has been recognized that migration can and does contribute to development in countries of origin and destination. Strengthening the link between migration and development and taking advantage of the benefits temporary and circular migration can bring to vulnerable communities needs to be part of the adaptation plans,” Mr. Swing stated.

The potential scale of future movements will require international support for those countries most affected by internal and immediate cross-border environmental migration as less and least-developed countries will not have the capacity or resources to manage or respond to such flows.

“Financial support to address the migration-related consequences of environmental degradation and climate change must not be to the detriment of development assistance which has already been hit by the economic crisis. Support has to be additional if developing countries are to build their resilience to the humanitarian impact,” Swing adds.

However, environmental migration will also be of increasing importance to the developed world, where policies to address the issue are conspicuous by their absence.

Citing future hotspots from several Asian, African, Central and Southern American countries with high emigration rates, significant socio-economic challenges and slow-onset climate-related disasters that impact on food security, a recently published IOM report argues the paucity of policies on environmental migration will mean the developed world will face equally difficult challenges in addressing the issue.

“Climate change, demographic trends and globalization all point to more migration in the future. This means that the well-being of even more people and communities will be subject to our ability to manage migration in a way that increases the benefits and opportunities and reduces suffering. The effects of climate change will be an increasingly important variable in this equation.

We need to think ahead and plan for change; we need to come up with integrated solutions that link migration and climate change adaptation; and we need to be prepared to respond to the humanitarian challenges that climate change is already posing today,” Mr. Swing concluded.

CARAM Asia Launches Campaign for Weekly Paid Day Off For FDWs

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

LET's join the call to give another fellow worker a weekly day off from work. Pls support CARAM Asia, a regional network of NGOs, migrant workers associations and trade unions who needs a collection of signatures for the campaign for "A Weekly Paid Day Off for Migrant Domestic Workers" by forwarding this email out to others.

If you employ a migrant domestic worker, please go to http://www.petitiononline.com/adayoff/petition.html.

Find out more:

Facebook causes @ http://apps.facebook.com/causes/407075

CARAM Asia’s Campaign

http://www.caramasia.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=763&Itemid=754

Singapore Day Off Campaign (tips on how you can give a day off)

http://www.dayoff.sg/

Thailand’s Campaign

http://apps.facebook.com/causes/319853

United for Foreign Domestic Workers Rights

http://ufdwrs.blogspot.com/

Newly Elected Chair of CARAM Asia Faces Unfounded Media Accusations

Friday, November 20, 2009

As a regional organisation comprised of some 34 members from 17 countries, Coordination of Action Research on AIDS and Mobility Asia (CARAM Asia) remains astonished by the recent accusations of Gulf News Daily and Akhbar Al-Khaleej and their malicious and unfounded attacks levelled at our newly elected Chair Nabeel Rajab, the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) and by extension CARAM Asia.

The recent allegation of links between CARAM Asia and the Iranian government remain absurd and baseless. Neither BCHR nor CARAM Asia has ever taken a solitary cent from the Iranian government or any of its wider bodies and such facile accusations only seeks to demonstrate the lengths that certain publications will go to smear those committed to increasing the rights of all people. Furthermore, we would like to note that not once has our organisation been contacted by the aforementioned publications, casting light on the credibility of the journalists and the publications themselves.

Further, it is crucial in the interest of transparency that some clear facts be recognised for the documentary record. The BCHR has been an active and passionate member of CARAM Asia since it was approved of membership in 2007 and it was as a result of this recognition that Nabeel Rajab was democratically elected last month as Chair of the organisation by our members. In fact, far from being ‘defunct’ as it was recently labelled by Gulf Daily News (Basma Mohammed, October 28th, 2009), the BCHR has continued to demonstrate its commitment to human rights of all people and continues to operate within an extremely hostile environment.

CARAM Asia is not alone in its support of Mr. Rajab and other prominent human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Frontline and International Federation of Human Rights FIDH have all used our Chair’s reports as well as his commentary on human rights concerns within Bahrain.

CARAM Asia will continue to offer its support to our Chair and collectively we will persist as a network to promote the issue of migrants’ rights at the national, regional and international sphere.

'India should implement policy for Intl migration'

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 2 (PTI) India should implement a policy on international labour as there is a need to regulate recruiting agents and ensure security and safety of migrant workers, particularly the unskilled ones, a labour resource centre affiliated to UGC has said.

"India accounts for the largest number of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled migrants. There is an urgent need to regulate the recruiting agents to ensure the security of the migrants, particularly the unskilled workers," J Johan, executive director of New Delhi-based Centre for Education and Communication told PTI ahead of a meet of the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) which kicked off today at Athens.

Stressing the need for a policy on international migration, Johan said an inter-governmental system should be evolved for the mobility of unskilled workers.

Greek agrees to regularise Bangladeshis

SOURCE: UNB, Dhaka

Most of about 30,000 Bangladeshis living in Greece migrated through illegal ways, but the Greek government now agreed to give a chance for their registration.

Labour, Employment and Expatriates' Welfare Minister Engineer

Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain on Tuesday informed journalists about the development after his visit to Greece where he attended a four-day seminar on ‘Global Forum on Migration and Development’.

The minister said his counterpart of Greece proposed to him to give a

chance for registration of the workers to get legality.

“About 10/15 thousand Bangladeshis would get registration card and continue their professional work without any hazard in this process,” he told the newsmen at his secretariat office.

Mosharraf said he discussed the matter with Bangladeshi workers and they agreed to take the opportunity.

The minister also informed that he had proposed to the Greek government import of trained manpower in shipping, agriculture, garment, tourism and hospitality sectors of that country.

“In reply to my proposal, Greece has agreed to send an expert team to

Bangladesh to scrutinise those sectors’ training facilities,” he said.

Mosharraf said that his government has sent about 4.13 lakh workers to different countries in last ten months and more than one lakh are prepared to go while 3.71 lakh workers went abroad in 2006 during the same time.

Lebanon: Deadly Month for Domestic Workers

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Investigate 8 Deaths and Why So Many of These Workers Die

(Beirut, November 9, 2009) – The Lebanese government should investigate the deaths of eight migrant domestic workers during October, 2009, as well as the reasons for the disproportionately high death rate among this group of workers, Human Rights Watch said today. An estimated 200,000 domestic workers, primarily from Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Ethiopia, work in Lebanon.

Four of the deaths are classified by police reports or by the workers’ embassies as suicides, three as possible work accidents, and one as a heart attack. Six of the deaths occurred when migrant domestic workers either fell or jumped from high places. One woman committed suicide by hanging herself from a tree. The dead include four Ethiopians, two Nepalis, and two Malagasies

“The death toll last month is clear evidence that the government isn’t doing enough to fix the difficult working conditions these women face,” said Nadim Houry, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The government needs to explain why so many women who came to Lebanon to work end up leaving the country in coffins.”

In August 2008, Human Rights Watch published a study showing that migrant domestic workers were dying at a rate of more than one a week in Lebanon.

A diplomat at the consulate of the country from which one of the dead women came told Human Rights Watch: “These women are under pressure, with no means to go away. Their passports are seized and they are often locked away in their employer’s house. It is like they are living in a cage. Human beings need to mingle with others; otherwise they lose their will to live.”

An official steering committee created in early 2006 and led by the labor ministry has taken some steps to improve the treatment of migrant domestic workers. In January 2009, the labor ministry introduced a standard employment contract that clarifies certain terms and conditions of employment for domestic workers, such as the maximum number of daily working hours, as well as a new regulation for employment agencies that aims to improve oversight of their operations. However, these workers are still excluded from the country’s labor law, and there are still no enforcement mechanisms for the current rules governing domestic employment.

“As long as Lebanon does not appoint labor inspectors to ensure compliance with the new rules, these rules will exist on paper only,” Houry said.

Human Rights Watch urged the official steering committee that works to improve the status of domestic workers to begin tracking deaths and injuries, to ensure that the police properly investigate them and to develop a concrete strategy to reduce these deaths. This strategy should include combating the practice of forced confinement, providing a labor ministry hotline for the workers, appointing labor inspectors, and improving working conditions and labor law protections.

Human Rights Watch also urged governments of the migrant workers’ countries of origin to increase the services at their embassies and diplomatic missions in Lebanon by providing counseling and shelter for workers in distress.

Details about Deaths of Migrant Domestic Workers in October 2009

On October 8, Sunit Bholan of Nepal, 22, reportedly committed suicide.

On October 16, Kassaye Etsegenet of Ethiopia, 23, died after reportedly jumping from the seventh floor of a building on Charles Helou avenue in Beirut. Etsegenet left a suicide note in which she states that her decision was based on personal reasons, in particular, a fight with another member of her family.

On October 21, Zeditu Kebede Matente of Ethiopia, 26, was found dead in the town of Haris hanging from an olive tree.

On October 23, Saneet Mariam of Ethiopia, 30, died after falling from the balcony of her employer’s house in the town of Mastita.

On October 23, Mina Rokaya, of Nepal, 24, died after being transferred from her employer’s house in Blat to a hospital. The police report says that she died from a heart attack.

On October 28, Tezeta Yalmoya of Ethiopia, 26, died after falling from the third floor of the apartment building where she worked in `Abra, next to Saida. According to reports in local papers, she fell while cleaning the balcony.

Newspapers in Madagascar reported the deaths of two Malagasy women in Lebanon in October. The first worker, identified as Mampionona, reportedly fell from the third floor while cleaning the balcony. She had arrived in Lebanon on September 1. The other, identified as Vololona, died after reportedly jumping from the fourth floor.

For more information, please contact:

In Beirut, Nadim Houry (English, Arabic, French): +961-3-639244 (mobile)

CARAM Asia: GFMD Still Fails as a Viable Platform to Address Migrants’ Concerns

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

As governments from around the world convene for the third annual Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) many in the civil society sector continue to question the credibility of the forum as a valid platform capable of producing beneficial change for migrants. As a regional network, Coordination of Action Research on AIDS and Mobility Asia (CARAM Asia) stands resolute in our criticism of the current structure that continues to operate outside of formal international legislation and promotes market forces above the human and employment rights of the over 250 million migrants around the world.

While we acknowledge that the GFMD currently stands as the largest space for international dialogue on issues related to migration, at its core the forum only seeks to address mobility through the lens of economic development via a state driven, voluntary and non-binding platform. As a result of this, key issues such as forced and irregular migration, right to health, access to justice and the overall social cost related to migration remains largely sidelined in this process. As an extension of this concern, CARAM Asia notes that the GFMD has deliberately sought to alienate the role of migrants’ voices from the discussion process and has demonstrated a clear lack of transparency and accountability where many non-binding agreements are made in closed door meetings outside of the scrutiny of rights based observers.

CARAM Asia will continue to object to the GFMD’s premise that the use of Labour Exporting Policies (LEP) and subsequent generation of remittances can be a tool for sustainable development. Our network is not alone in this view and the findings from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index has continually demonstrated that despite records levels of generated remittances to developing countries, the quality of education, health and overall standard of living has in the vast majority of cases, decreased.

We at CARAM Asia continue to believe that the GFMD will never become a platform of positive change in the field of migration until it seeks to engage directly with migrants and their communities and halt their continued promotion of failed economic policies. Furthermore, the GFMD must immediately seek to include wider issues related to migration where governments of destination countries are directly encouraged to implement and abide by previous international human, gender and employment rights frameworks to provide migrants the same protections as their own citizenry.

It is with this in mind that CARAM Asia recommends that the participants of the GFMD take the following steps;

-Both sending and receiving countries must immediately sign and ratify the International Convention on the Protection of the rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (1990)

-The GFMD must immediately increase its transparency and accountability of the overall process. This must include the participation of grassroots organisations to address the wider social issues related to migration including addressing gender specific vulnerabilities.

-States that host female migrant workers must adhere to existing rights as laid out in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW, 1979). Through this the GFMD should strongly seek to use its platform to recommend to all participating parties the immediate recognition of domestic work as work with protection in domestic legislation.

- Migrant workers must be protected by labour rights and Decent Work Standards set out in the ILO conventions

- Whether documented or undocumented, the GFMD must recognise that migrants are entitled to fundamental human rights including the right to health, equal access to justice, the freedom of movement, freedom of association and to freedom from abuse and exploitation including torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

- When analysing the issue of development, the GFMD must place at its core, Human rights and social justice cored for development with comprehensive ¬ - work for balance of social, cultural, political and economic progress and in line with the definition and framework as stated in the UN Declaration on the Right to Development (1986). Alternative development should ¬ place the human person at the center of development and be aimed at improving the quality of life and dignity of all people and their environment.

-Governments should ensure that adequate and informed pre-departure orientation is given to all migrant workers including health and rights awareness.

- The GFMD must seek to immediately move back to work under international framework of the United Nations mandate with due accountability and transparency

- Regulating and monitoring of the labour recruitment industry to ensure labour and human rights of migrant workers and ensure that migrant workers are not charged exorbitant fees.

-States must stop propagandizing the myth that remittances can be used the basis for development and instead initiate policies aiming at addressing a fundamental, lasting political, economic and social reforms needed in developing countries. This must include the need for developing infrastructure for sustainable development by job creation, employment opportunity, universal healthcare, right to decent education and security of life.