A Call for Open, Inclusive, Transparent, and Responsive GCM Review Process with Migrants and All Actors
Making the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM)[1] open, inclusive, transparent and truly responsive to the needs and issues of migrants is rooted in the assertion by Churches Witnessing With Migrants (CWWM)[2] that there should be nothing for and about migrants without migrants in any venue and level of negotiation.[3] The voice, agency and demands of migrants and their families and organizations must be taken into full account in the implementation of the GCM and its review at IMRF 2022.
As the major stakeholder in the process, migrants must have an active presence in all discussions about them, their lives, and their future. Their voices must be heard, and their experiences validated, in the 2022 International Migration Review Forum (IMRF)[4] in parallel with the reports coming from government representatives.
Presencing the migrants and their voice at GCM processes were two among central assertions made by leaders of various migrant and faith groups around the world when they gathered online on 7th and 8th of December 2021 for the International Interfaith Briefing and Consultation on the GCM[5]. Ensuring a direct and democratic participation of migrants will bring a more objective and meaningful review of the GCM.
Various participating organizations emphasized the need to increase knowledge about the GCM process, especially the International Migration Review Forum (IMRF), which meets for the first time in May 2022. Faith-based groups, and migrant serving organizations should support the participation and engagement of migrants in the IMRF process.
The Consultation participants expressed concern about the shrinking of democratic space and discourse for migrants and civil society at large. Participants committed to challenge the GCM review process, urging it to be a welcoming and hospitable space for democratic participation of over 300 million migrants, and all peoples in situations of forced migration.
The Consultation was made acutely aware of the vulnerabilities and crises situation of migrants that were already present and worsening even before COVID-19 pandemic struck. All over the world, migrants are experiencing difficulties accessing health services, deterioration in working conditions, widespread loss of employment and erosion of wages, and abuses and injustices.
While exploitative and oppressive conditions were already recurring among migrants before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the loss of livelihood and inability to access health care services, and stigmatization, discrimination and xenophobia have further exacerbated their precarious conditions. Their welfare and wellbeing are imperilled without timely and sufficient assistance from either their host countries or their countries of origin. Even as strict travel restrictions were imposed by governments and health authorities, migrants continue to be deployed and traded as cheap, disposable labour.
Arrangements for the participation of migrants and their partners in the IMRF 2022 must be made so that vulnerabilities brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic can be overcome and not used as reason—as if insurmountable—to marginalize or sideline migrants in the review process.
In particular, the Consultation called on the UN Network on Migration to provide a significant space for grassroots migrants to meaningfully engage in the IMRF 2022. It is crucial that the process be open, inclusive, responsive, and transparent. This Network should allow a significant number of migrants in deliberations and discussions, receive more spotlight reports from grassroots migrants, and closely monitor the realities on the ground from the perspective of migrants.
The Consultation reiterated CWWM’s call to the UN to work in concert with the wide spectrum of migrant/refugee/asylum seeker/uprooted and stateless peoples, communities, service organizations, civil society and advocacy groups. Democratic, representative, and accountable governance must be ensured at all times and in all levels. No negotiation must proceed and conclude without the robust participation and engagement by all stakeholders in this process, [6] including making the GCM language understandable to migrants.
The Consultation committed to support migrants’ participation in the IMRF 2022. Leading up to the review process, CWWM will provide and create spaces and support for all migrants, refugees and uprooted peoples to continue their collective actions and make recommendations that are truly reflective of their collective aspirations.
The Consultation stressed the importance of the protection of religious freedom of all migrants wherever they are. Such protection forms part of interreligious cooperation which is fundamental in the work of CWWM. It also affirmed to strive together to build a community that empowers the grassroots migrants’ movement, to build a better society where forced migration is but a thing of the past, and where migration is a choice by every person and not a consequence of failed economic and development policies.
CWWM’s advocacy, campaign, lobbying and service with and for migrants have even become more urgent. They are an affirmation of CWWM’s continuing work in building an infrastructure of care and hospitality (acts of mercy) and an architecture of protection and advocacy (acts of justice) for all migrants, refugees and all peoples in situations of forced movement. ###
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[2] https://nccphilippines.org/cwwm/?page_id=14
[3] https://refugeesmigrants.un.org/sites/default/files/cwwm-ts5.pdf
[4] https://migrationnetwork.un.org/international-migration-review-forum-2022
[5] The Consultation was co-organized by Asia Pacific Interfaith Network for the Rights of Migrants, Churches Witnessing With Migrants-Africa, Churches Witnessing With Migrants-Global and co-sponsored by Anglican Church of Canada, Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants, General Board of Church and Society of The United Methodist Church, International Migrants Alliance, Karibu Foundation, Migrante International, Presbyterian Church (USA), and The United Church of Canada. It was attended by 40 participants from 26 grassroots migrant organizations, migrant-serving organizations and faith-based institutions and groups.
[6] https://refugeesmigrants.un.org/sites/default/files/cwwm-ts5.pdf