Nations endorse pact on treatment, safety of migrants

UNITED NATIONS — More than 100 nations have approved a declaration calling on governments to intensify efforts for safe and orderly migration, crack down on human smuggling and trafficking, and ensure that migrants are respected and receive health care and other services.

The 13-page declaration was adopted by consensus by U.N. member nations attending a four-day meeting to review the first international agreement dealing with migration. The Global Compact was approved by the U.N. General Assembly in December 2018, and participants at this week’s meeting recommended that the 193member world body also endorse Friday’s declaration in the coming months.

Assembly President Abdulla Shahid said many migrants leave their countries to find work while others are forced to leave due to violence, poverty, environmental degradation and climate change.

“Regardless of their circumstances, the international community has a responsibility to ensure that the human rights of everyone involved are respected,” he told a news conference.

The declaration said as many as 281 million people were international migrants in 2020 globally, of whom 48% were women and girls and 15% were under the age of 20.

The 34-page compact addresses all aspects of migration — why people leave their home countries, how to protect them, integrate them and cooperate in returning them home safely.

Its principles include reaffirming that migrants have the same human rights as all other people that “must be respected, protected and fulfilled at all times.”

The compact has 23 objectives “for safe, orderly and regular migration” that seek to boost cooperation in managing legal migration and discourage illegal border crossings. They range from technical issues like collecting data, ensuring migrants have proof of their legal identity, and promoting faster and safer transfer home of earnings by migrant workers, to such matters as preventing and eradicating trafficking, providing access to basic services for migrants, and using migration detention “only as a measure of last resort.”

The declaration said migrants continue to struggle to get humanitarian assistance, including search and rescue efforts at sea and medical care, “which creates and exacerbates situations of vulnerability.”