Conditions for migrants must serve as the benchmark to measure progress in implementing the Global Compact for Migration, non-governmental stakeholders emphasized at an informal hearing on the eve of the International Migration Review Forum.
A wide range of non-State stakeholders met at the United Nations in New York on 16 May ahead of the International Migration Review Forum (IMRF) to discuss gaps in implementation of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration* (GCM) over the past four years and to propose concrete recommendations for action based on their direct work with migrants.
They had “a lot of concerns and even a little disappointment,” according to Colin Rajah, Coordinator of the Civil Society Action Committee. Mr Rajah moderated the final thematic session of the informal hearing, a set feature of the IMRF, which is the primary intergovernmental review forum of the GCM held every four years. He noted that though hearing participants had reported on some good implementation practices, they had reflected that these lacked consistency and regularity.
Robust discussions during the day had underlined that on-the-ground realities for migrants had not improved since the launch of the GCM but rather had worsened, Mr Rajah said. “And the conditions for us migrants, that’s the metric we must [use] to judge whether we are doing a good job with the Global Compact.”
The representative of civil society at this first-ever IMRF will present a summary of the hearing during the IMRF opening plenary on 19 May. He identified a clear red thread in interventions from the multitude of stakeholders present. “Migrants and our voices should be at the front and center and throughout all of these reviews and implementation,” he stressed. Borrowing a slogan from women in the domestic workers movement, Mr Rajah summed up a key recommendation from the informal hearing as “nothing about us without us!”
Thanking the non-State actors as they prepared to leave the hearing, Mr Rajah reminded them of the task at hand to carry this participatory approach into discussions with government representatives. “We need to lift up our voices as stakeholders in the days ahead [during] this IMRF and ensure that we are truly part of the Global Compact. And we have to lift up our voices throughout the coming years towards the next IMRF.”
*The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration is an international agreement adopted by 152 States in December 2018. As the first-ever global framework for migration governance, it aims to increase international collaboration on all aspects related to migration, including human rights, humanitarian needs, and development.
