Message to the Meeting on “Rising Repression Against Migrants Around the World” and the briefing on the parallel events to the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) in Manila in October 2008

MIGRANTE Europe extends its solidarity to the participants meeting to discuss the topic “Rising Repression Against Migrants Around the World” in Geneva, Switzerland, on March 18. This meeting comes as a side event to the 7th UN Human Rights Council Session where human rights advocates from the Philippines intend to call attention to the impunity of human rights abuses committed by the Arroyo government.

This meeting is timely and urgent - to call attention to the situation of migrants and refugees around the world. In this regard, we quote the statement of the International League of People's Struggle (ILPS), during the GFMD meeting in Brussels, Belgium in July last year, that sums up the plight of migrants and refugees all over the world:

“Majority of the foreign workers are found in industries as factory workers, in agriculture, and in the service sector, especially in low paying jobs in households,restaurants, hotels and entertainment establishments. They are subjected to the most intense anti-labor and anti-women conditions. National labor standards usually do not cover migrant workers, especially temporary migrants.Undocumented workers are criminalized. Abuse is rampant especially of women working in households and the entertainment industry.

Immigrants in capitalist countries are also one of the first to carry the brunt of economic deterioration.They are commonly displaced from their jobs while policies for social services are made restrictive and inaccessible to majority of them. Racism, discrimination and xenophobia have also become widespread.

Migrant workers are the first to be subjected to harsh labor and immigration policies including pay cuts, imposition of taxes, reduction of benefits and the massive arrest and deportation of the undocumented. Worse, during crisis they are scapegoated as states fan up anti-migrant sentiments among the local workforce to shift the blame for the economic hardships from the implementation of “neoliberal” globalization and the crisis of the global capitalist economy. The “war on terror” does not spare migrant workers as anti-terror hysteria makes them, particularly the undocumented, targets of racial discrimination, racist attacks and other grave human rights violations.

Meanwhile in labor-exporting countries, migrant workers are but commodities. And in some countries, they are the main export product, used to prop up their sagging economies. Remittances have become such an integral part of the country’s survival that even a few days’ disruption in the flow of remittances can plunge the economy to even more severe socio-economic and political crisis.”

Migrants rights are human rights, and as the topic of the meeting strongly emphasizes, rising repression against migrant workers means a rise in cases of human rights violations among migrants. As migrants and human rights advocates, we must stand in solidarity with all migrants and refugees amidst the onslaughts on their basic rights and freedoms.

Amidst the increasing repression of migrants, there is a steady growth in strength of the resistance against repression on the national, regional and international level. Through their campaigns and mass mobilizations, migrants and their advocates are raising awareness of their repression, exploitation and above all, uniting in struggle. Their unity will find concrete expression in the launching of the International Migrant Alliance (IMA) June 2008 in Hongkong.

We bid the participants of this meeting success and goodluck to the planning meeting of the parallel activities of the GFMD in Manila in October 2008. We see each other in Manila in October.

MIGRANTE Europe

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

18 March 2008