Migrants move in search of safer and better lives. They contribute to the welfare and sustainable development of their countries of origin and destination. Yet they face complex human rights challenges and vulnerabilities that we must address to ensure no one is left behind.
In the Asia-Pacific region, the number of international migrants has grown from 52 million in 1990 to over 65 million today, representing roughly 25% of all the world’s international migrants. Notably, 70% of all international migrants in Asia-Pacific come from within the region itself.
Most of the region’s migrants send remittances to families and others in their origin countries. This is important because remittances support household consumption and contribute to poverty reduction. Between 2009 and 2019, remittances to the region rose from $183 billion to $330 billion (Rs 24.1 lakh crore), nearly half of the 2019 global total of $717 billion.
But since the COVID-19 pandemic, remittances have plummeted. Remittances from those migrating to Eastern Europe and Central Asia declined over 16%, from $57 billion in 2019 to $48 billion in 2020. Remittances in East Asia and the Pacific have fallen more than 10% in the same period, from $147 billion to $131 billion.
According to the Asia-Pacific Migration Report 2020, both voluntary and involuntary causes drive migration between countries in Asia and the Pacific and in other regions of the world. The principal recorded reason is temporary labour migration. Many people also migrate for education, to escape poverty and inequality due to food insecurity and climate change, to reunite with family or for permanent settlement and retirement. People often move for more than one reason.
Migrants frequently lack access to essential services constrained by laws, fees, language barriers and restrictions related to residency and migration status. Women migrants, especially domestic workers, are particularly at risk of discrimination, violence, abuse and exploitation. Migration-related child protection risks are a significant concern throughout Asia and the Pacific.
This week, from March 10 to 12, the Asia-Pacific region will review the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration adopted by UN member states in 2018 – a framework, a roadmap and a call to action for international and regional coordination and cooperation on international migration.
The regional review will highlight the situation of migrants in our region, identify good practices and emerging gaps to make migration safe, orderly and regular. It will provide a platform for countries and stakeholders to compare experiences, learn from each other and enhance collective action.
We have a unique opportunity for our region to align migration with sustainable development and the effective respect, protection and fulfilment of the human rights of all migrants and mainstream migration into development planning and policies. By ensuring the global compact delivers on its promise and potential, the review will demonstrate the relevance and tangible value of its objectives – for states, migrants and their families, and the community in which they live.
We have a window to achieve safe, orderly and regular migration in our region. Doing so is critical to achieving sustainable development and realising human and labour rights. This is all the more urgent given the imperative to recover better together from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The pandemic has affected all countries in Asia and the Pacific, and its impact on migrants has been devastating. Migrants have been stranded by closed borders and families separated. They have been forcibly returned to countries of origin, where they face destitution and lack of access to health care, treatment and support, lost jobs and earnings. Many who have been unable to return home have become stranded and faced stigma and discrimination.
The pandemic has rendered women migrants in particular more vulnerable to sexual and gender-based violence as well as trafficking and exploitation, especially those with irregular migration statuses. Existing vulnerabilities and lack of access to services have been exacerbated, including migrant children’s access to health, care, treatment and support, education and access to child protection services.
Yet migrants have played a critical role as essential workers, particularly in the health sector, with food supply and in the (formal and informal) care economy – in the region as well as beyond. Migrants will be crucial to countries’ longer-term recoveries, we must recognise and value their contributions to our societies. At the same time, every migrant, regardless of their status, is a holder of human rights and this perspective must be central to our COVID-19 response and recovery plans as well.
We must seize the chance to reimagine human mobility as we bounce back from the pandemic, using the compact as a practical and concrete tool to address the challenges and reap the opportunities of migration for all – now as much as in the years to come.
Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is the UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (ESCAP).