GLOBAL CALL TO ACTION

PEOPLES’ GLOBAL ACTION ON MIGRATION, DEVELOPMENT AND HUMAN RIGHTS
22-30 October 2008

We are representatives of migrant associations, peasant organizations, women, workers, urban and rural poor, fisherfolks, social movements and civil society organizations who have been struggling for recognition of our rights, and to resist and stop neo-liberal globalization in its various forms. We recognize that the institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank are all instruments of corporate globalization. At the same time, we also recognize that Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) and Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) between governments push for the same agenda of putting corporations’ interests before that of the people.

After decades of corporate globalization, the evidence is stark that this has brought us nothing but worsening poverty, increasing insecurity, job losses, deepening indebtedness, displaced communities, and has contributed to the current global climate crisis. The WTO’s Doha Agenda with its empty promises of development, will worsen the conditions of the worlds’ poor and cause further displacement of communities. FTAs and EPAs also threaten to push people further into poverty and enrich transnational corporations and the elite, while subjecting migrant workers as tradable, exploitable and disposable commodities for corporate profit.

Migration continues to be a growing, global phenomenon. Over 250 million people worldwide are migrants -- living, working, raising families and building communities in places outside their country of origin. Total migrants’ remittance transfers to our home communities are a staggering US$300 billion a year, more than triple all international aid. However, migration policies and practices are failing to protect our human rights, and in many cases, cause or contribute to greater and systematic abuse.
As stated by the first Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) from Brussels 2007, migration is increasingly treated by governments as a means to produce “mutual benefits to countries.” The GFMD promotes “legal migration as an opportunity for both origin and destination countries” and suggests that remittances should be “leveraged through policies and actions by governments in partnership with the private sector”, while migrants and other civil society are systematically excluded from the GFMD process. Special Representative to the UN on Migration and Development and former WTO Director-General Peter Sutherland further underscores “how migration can help meet [countries’] development goals”, and advocates for countries “to manage migration more intelligently” through greater governmental cooperation, insisting that the GFMD process itself be focused on meeting the needs of governments, not civil society.

Such trends have resulted in migrant workers being treated as disposable pawns in international trading systems, to promote economic growth with disregard to our basic rights. Instead of protecting migrants’ safety and security, emphasis is being placed on more temporary and circular migration models such as the WTO’s General Agreement of Trade and Services (GATS) Mode 4, which expose migrant workers to abuses and exploitation by their recruiters and employers. The GFMD promotes EU-African agreements as models of governmental cooperation, but these agreements are notorious for causing the abuse, torture and deaths of countless migrants. Agreements such as the Italy-Libya and Spain-Morocco cooperative agreements, and the Merida Initiative between the U.S. and Mexico, has resulted in the expansion and militarization of borders, and increasing humanitarian crises along the coasts of Lampedusa and the Canary Islands, and along the U.S.-Mexico border.

At the same time, in spite of the recognized rights of migrants stated clearly in the Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Convention on Migrant Workers, countries such as the U.S., Mexico, U.K., Italy, the Netherlands, Libya, South Africa, Bahrain, South Korea and Malaysia, continue to institute and enforce draconian policies that criminalize migrants and deny their basic rights. These not only institute widespread inhumane abuse, detentions, torture and deportations, but also promote an environment where racist and unscrupulous individuals can behave with impunity against migrants through vigilantism and other acts of violence.

International trade should also not be at the expense of the people and our right to sustainable development, food, livelihoods, decent work and natural resources. The United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development states that “the right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development.” The Declaration also states that people have the “inalienable right to full sovereignty over all their natural wealth and resources.”

We therefore commit ourselves to moving forward with our struggle against the exploitation of migrants and against neoliberal globalization in all its forms. We demand to be heard by the GFMD and all international fora dealing with migration. We call for migration and development policies built upon the principles of human security with dignity, justice and equality which uphold the rights of all people, regardless of race, color, class, religion, ethnicity, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, disability, immigration or citizenship status. We strive to strengthen each other’s campaigns and movements by working together at the local, national, regional and international levels.

Our strength lies in our unity and so we call on all of you to join us in this struggle and to stand together to fight for the recognition of our human rights, especially our fundamental right to development and self-determination. We also commit to building and strengthening peoples’ alternatives to corporate-led globalization. Another world is not only possible but necessary. We call on all those who share this vision to join us and implement this plan of action.



Endorsed by:

APWLD/CTHUR
ATIKHA
Alliance of Progressive Labor
ASEAN Trade Union Council
Asian Migrant Center
Batis Center for Women
Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino
Center for Migrant Advocacy
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women in the Asia Pacific
Daughters of Charity
Global Network Asia
Focus on the Global South
Freedom for Debt Coalition
International Gender and Trade Network- Asia
Jubilee South
KAKAMMPI
Kanlungan Center
Migrant Forum in Asia
Migrants Rights International
PHILCOMDEV/ Phil Consortium
PSI/PSLINK
NUBCW/BWI
Solidarites Migrant Scalabrini Inc.
Stop the New Round
UNI-APRO
UNLAD Kabayan
Women and Gender Institute

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