Migrants spur growth, but treated harshly

Migrants spur growth, but treated harshly

Evelyn Leopold, Reuters/United Nations

Nearly 200 million international migrants fuel their home
countries' economy by US$240 billion a year and spend more than
$2 trillion in their host nation, but suffer exploitation and
abuse, a UN-backed report says.

The Global Commission on International Migration, a 19-member
independent panel, says most governments have a haphazard,
uncoordinated approach to immigrants and rarely think further
than putting more controls on borders.

The panel's 88-page report released on Wednesday said rich
countries failed to recognize how much they benefited from low-
cost or highly valued labor while developing nations did little
to encourage their citizens to return home.

Despite many governments having signed UN human rights
treaties, implementation is rare "with the result that many
migrants continue to experience exploitation, discrimination and
abuse," the report said.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2002 called for a review of
international migration problems in hopes of putting the issue on
the world agenda. The 191-member UN General Assembly is scheduled
to discuss it next year.

"In the 21st century, one of our most important challenges is
to find ways to manage migration for the benefit of all -- of
sending countries, receiving countries, transit countries, and
migrants themselves," Annan said at the launch of the report.

"I agree with the commission that we are not rising to this
challenge yet. But I am convinced we must do so," Annan said.

The commission's main recommendation was to create a new
grouping with the task of bringing together heads of
organizations involved in migration, such as the UN refugee
agency and the International Organization of Migration, and
coordinating worldwide immigration policies.

Another proposal was for rich and poor nations to develop
temporary fixed-term migration programs for foreign workers under
agreed conditions. Even though this might appear as second-class
status for the immigrants, it would make more sense than the
current uncoordinated approach, the report said.

Manphele Ramphele, a former World Bank official and co-chair
of the commission, told a news conference that debt relief and
fairer trade policies would make staying home more attractive so
people "need not jump into the Mediterranean to get better job
opportunities."

But the sensitivity of the subject was apparent in the report,
which gave few detailed examples of how governments handled or
mistreated migrants.

The report noted that the economies of many industrial
countries, especially those with a low birth rate, would collapse
without foreign nurses, computer engineers or farm workers.

"If information percolated throughout economies, people would
stop moaning about migrants taking away work," said Ramphele, a
South African.

According to the World Bank, migrants remit some $240 billion
to their home countries, about triple the amount of foreign aid
from governments. Ramphele estimated the migrants contributed
about $2 trillion to the economies of the countries where they
work.

Mexico receives $16 billion a year from migrant workers, India
$9.9 billion, and the Philippines $8.5 billion.

The money comes from the United States, which has some 35
million migrants, at $28 billion a year; Saudi Arabia at $15
billion, and Belgium, Germany and Switzerland at a combined $8
billion, the report said.

While people have immigrated for centuries, cheap air
transport and better communications have generated a new wave of
migration. Nearly 200 million people now live and work outside
their own country, double the number of 25 years ago, according
to the UN Population Division.

But the report says that financial need was not the only
reason for migration. "The human race has always been curious,
and eager to visit difference places, gain new experiences and
encounter unfamiliar cultures, " it said.