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ASEAN, EU firm on safe migration

Southeast Asia and Europe’s premier regional organizations have reaffirmed their commitment to ensuring the safe movement of labor across borders, just as a recent effort to strengthen global migration governance faced growing opposition driven by anti-immigration populism

Agnes Anya (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Thu, December 13, 2018

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ASEAN, EU firm on safe migration

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outheast Asia and Europe’s premier regional organizations have reaffirmed their commitment to ensuring the safe movement of labor across borders, just as a recent effort to strengthen global migration governance faced growing opposition driven by anti-immigration populism.

The 10-nation ASEAN launched a campaign on safe labor migration with a seminar in Jakarta on Wednesday, two days after some 150 United Nations member states agreed to adopt the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) in Morocco.

“I just wanted to say that ASEAN member states are committed to making sure that migration is going to happen in a safe manner,” said Kung Phoak, ASEAN’s deputy secretary-general for socio-cultural community affairs, in response to a question on the bloc’s view of the GCM.

As many as 193 UN member states, excluding the United States, had initially agreed in July on the wording of the migration document, drafted with the objective of overcoming irregular migration, strengthening legal migration channels and protecting human rights.

On Monday, however, only 164 countries ratified the non-binding agreement while the US voted against the pact. Washington was joined by other countries such as Australia, the Netherlands and Hungary, which either withdrew or reserved judgment. Some of the countries that did not support the GCM cited, among other reasons, sovereignty concerns.

At Wednesday’s event, Kung said ASEAN nations had been working on producing migration-related documents and creating safe environs and mechanisms to support the free-flow of migrant labor within the region. This includes the ASEAN consensus on the protection and promotion of the rights of migrant workers, another non-binding document adopted last year.

Lawmakers and activists from the region have criticized the ASEAN consensus for not providing enough robust protections for migrant workers, but Kung insisted that the instrument was born out of public service. “If you can see from all the key documents that have been produced [by ASEAN], they are not easy to conclude,” he said.

“So many consultations and differences arose, but […] there must be some concerted activities to make sure that we properly address these problems.”

Kung said there were about 7 million migrants crisscrossing Southeast Asia and that the number had swiftly increased in the past three decades.

“Labor migration is an important factor [that creates] remarkable economic and social development in the region,” he said in his opening remarks on Wednesday

Meanwhile, the European Union Ambassador to ASEAN, Francisco Fontan, said that members of the bloc essentially considered rising migration and the challenges it posed as global problems.

To tackle such issues, there is a need for a shared approach by countries of origin, transit and destination in the framework of global cooperation, he said at the event.

“We can all build very large walls, but we cannot build walls in the sea,” Fontan said on Wednesday, in a subtle dig at US President Donald Trump’s eagerness to build a wall along the border with Mexico.

Previously, after the GCM was adopted in Marrakesh, Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi expressed regret over the withdrawal of countries from the GCM, saying that collaboration was a necessity. Concerted efforts at the national, regional and global levels were necessary to ensure the effective implementation of the compact, she said, “especially in creating an enabling environment to achieve safe, orderly and regular migration for work”. (tjs)

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