(New York City) “Migrants are the human face of globalization. Now is the time for
us to act. We have to make globalization fair and
ethical.” That was the call Mary
Robinson made at the rally yesterday of various migrant rights
organizations and other human rights advocates in a plaza across the
United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York City where permanent
mission representatives and ministerial delegates from around the
world gathered for the UN High-Level Dialogue on Migration and
Development. The former President of Ireland and High
Commissioner of the UN Human Rights Commission said that there is a
need to link migration to development without sacrificing human
rights.
“Our job is to emphasize
the role of governments in migration and to link it to development.
There should be shared responsibility…co-development based on human
rights principles,” said Robinson. “Before, migration is associated
with criminality, barbed wires and taking one’s job. Also, human
rights groups in the past did include migration in their advocacies.
However, migration is a very important human rights issue. We must
now forge a different movement where migrants’ issues are top
priority, where people have dignity and rights are
respected.”
According to the rally
organizers, Migrants Rights International (MRI), Migrant Forum in
Asia (MFA) and the US-based National Network for Immigrant and
Refugee Rights (NNIRR), the protest action sought to remind the
government representatives inside the UN to place human rights at
the top of the agenda of the two-day dialogue. Sajida Ally of MRI
said she hoped for a more systematic analysis of how migration
impacts on labor and human rights of migrants: We caution the
governments’ overemphasis on labor market economics of migration
that treat migrant workers as commodities.”
Ellen Sana of the
Philippine-based Center for Migrant Advocacy and member of MFA said
that now is the time for governments to implement the International
Convention for the Protection of Migrant Workers and their Families.
“I say enough to the discussions that are confined within the four
walls of the UN. Policies, attitudes and practices that are inimical
to the interests of migrants should be changed. Migrants have human
rights and we should respect that.”
The rally was attended
by more than a hundred people representing migrants rights
organization in Asia, North America, Latin America and the
Middle
East.
