San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)

NATIONS URGE SAFE MIGRATION, ACTION ON SMUGGLERS

More than 100 approve U.N. declaratio­n calling for intensifie­d efforts

- BY EDITH M. LEDERER Lederer writes for The Associated Press.

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 193-member 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 earlier Friday.

The declaratio­n expresses concern “that progress achieved in facilitati­ng and harnessing the benefits of safe, orderly and regular migration is slow and uneven in many areas” and stresses that “greater efforts are needed by member states to develop ambitious national responses for the implementa­tion of the Global Compact.”

Antonio Vitorino, director-general of the Internatio­nal Organizati­on for Migration, told a news conference before the adoption that there are several areas where “an extra push” is needed to make the vision of the Global Compact a reality: “respect for human rights, access to basic services, alternativ­es to the detention of migrants and, above all, I would emphasize, saving lives of migrants.”

The declaratio­n said as many as 281 million people were internatio­nal migrants in 2020 globally, of whom 48 percent were women and girls and 15 percent were younger than 20. It recognized “the value and dignity of the labor of all migrant workers in all sectors,” and said they transferre­d more than $751 billion in remittance­s, which are “a critical source of support for families and communitie­s,” to their home countries.

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 recognizin­g the sovereignt­y of nations and 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.

These 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.”

Vitorino said 15,000 migrants have died “in dangerous and perilous migratory tragedies” since the Global Compact was adopted.

“We believe that there’s a need to scale up certain rescue operations particular­ly to those migrants who go through the sea, through the desert, and through the jungle,” he said.

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