COMMITTEE ON PROTECTION OF RIGHTS OF MIGRANT WORKERS
OPENS TWELFTH SESSION

The Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families this morning opened its twelfth session, hearing from Bacre Waly Ndiaye, Director of the Human Rights Council and Special Procedures Division of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, who updated Committee Experts on developments since their last session in October 2009. After electing its new Bureau, and re-electing Abdelhamid El Jamri as Chairperson for a second term, the Committee adopted its programme of work and held a meeting with a non-governmental organization on the report to be presented by Algeria, the only report to be considered during this session.

In opening remarks, Mr. Ndiaye said the twelfth session of the Committee was an important landmark as it was the first time that the full Committee was meeting since membership was expanded to 14 members. The Committee’s expansion also coincided with the twentieth anniversary of the Convention’s adoption and the High Commissioner would carry out all efforts, in cooperation with the Committee Experts, to gain the largest possible profit from the twentieth anniversary. The Committee should strive to make optimal use of this anniversary year to raise awareness about migrants’ rights and to encourage more States to join the Convention.

Mr. Ndiaye said that the effective protection of human rights in the context of migration was one of the six priority areas of the Office of the High Commissioner for 2010-2011. OHCHR would give priority attention to four critical areas related to migration, namely: discrimination, xenophobia, racism and related intolerance against migrants; economic, social, and cultural rights of migrants; immigration detention and criminalization of irregular migration; and the impact of the global economic crisis on the human rights of migrants. Moreover, as a common overriding priority, the Office would promote and raise awareness about the International Convention of the Rights of Migrant Workers and Members of their Families.

Abdelhamid El Jamri, Chairperson of the Committee, welcomed all initiatives taken in order to promote the International Convention for the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers in the context of the twentieth anniversary of the Convention and thanked the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for their support and attention to the issues affecting migrant workers and their rights. The issue of human rights in the context of migration was increasingly being debated at the national and international levels and the more this happened, the more it made the question of ratifying the Convention even more relevant. Mr. El Jamri regretted that there were only 43 States parties to the Convention, adding that this was also an opportunity to launch a call to all States to ratify the Convention.

The Committee heard its new members make a solemn declaration. The new members are Fatoumata Abdourhamana Dicko (Mali); Andrea Miller-Stennett (Jamaica); Francisco Carrion Mena (Ecuador); Miguel Angel Ibarra Gonzalez (Guatemala); and Ahmadou Tall (Senegal). It then elected Mr. Jamri as Chairperson for a second term; Ana Elizabeth Cubias Medina; Azad Taghizade and Jose S. Brillantes as Vice Chairpersons of the Committee and Ahmed Hassan EL Borai as Rapporteur. The Committee then adopted its agenda and programme of work.

The Committee will resume its work at 3 p.m. this afternoon to start its consideration of the report of Algeria on how that country is fulfilling its obligations under the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers.

Statements

BACRE WALY NDIAYE, Director of the Human Rights Council and Special Procedures Division of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the twelfth session of the Committee was an important landmark as it was the first time that the full Committee was meeting since membership was expanded to 14 members. The Committee’s expansion also coincided with the twentieth anniversary of the Convention’s adoption. The Committee should strive to make optimal use of this anniversary year to raise awareness about migrants’ rights and to encourage more States to join the Convention.

Mr. Ndiaye said that the effective protection of human rights in the context of migration was one of the six priority areas of the Office of the High Commissioner for 2010-2011. OHCHR would give priority attention to four critical areas related to migration, namely: discrimination, xenophobia, racism and related intolerance against migrants; economic, social, and cultural rights of migrants; immigration detention and criminalization of irregular migration; and the impact of the global economic crisis on the human rights of migrants. Moreover, as a common overriding priority, the Office would promote and raise awareness about the International Convention of the Rights of Migrant Workers.

Mr. Ndiaye also noted that High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay herself missed no opportunity to address human rights concerns affecting migrants and she consistently encouraged States to ratify the Convention. Migration-related issues figured prominently in her public statements and in her dialogue with Government authorities. During her ongoing visit to the Gulf region, the High Commissioner specifically highlighted how the situation of migrant domestic workers was an issue of particular concern, while also noting the positive trend in some countries in the region to reconsider the sponsorship system which rigidly bound migrants to their employers.

Mr. Ndiaye went on to remark that this year’s twentieth anniversary of the Convention provided an excellent occasion to focus attention on the need to achieve universal acceptance of this core human rights instrument. Throughout the year, the Office of the High Commissioner, including through regional and country offices, would organize a series of events and activities to promote and raise awareness about the Convention.

Mr. Ndiaye also outlined concrete steps that had been taken to raise awareness of the Convention. Earlier this month, the Steering Committee for the Campaign for Ratification of the International Convention on the Rights of Migrants had launched a global campaign calling on governments to ratify the Convention as a concrete and important step towards ending widespread human rights violations suffered by migrants around the world. Mr. Ndiaye also mentioned that the Office of the High Commissioner had supported and organized a series of meetings on migration-related issues, including a two-day regional conference in Barmako, Mali, in November last year on the role on national human rights institutions in the protection of migrants’ human rights. Currently, the recently opened regional office in Brussels was planning, jointly with the International Labour Organization, a Legal Colloquium on the International Human Rights Framework of Protection for Migrant Domestic Workers, due to be held 25 and 26 May 2010 in Brussels. The Office was also supporting a conference on human rights and migration organized by the Council of Europe and the Government of Portugal in Lisbon on 31 May and 1 June 2010.

Mr. Ndiaye was pleased to inform the Committee that the Office of the High Commissioner would assume the chairmanship of the Global Migration Group during the second half of 2010. The Global Migration Group, of which OHCHR was a founding member, was another key forum for the efforts to promote a human rights approach to migration. It brought together 13 United Nations organizations and the International Organization for Migration. Next month, on 27 and 28 May, during the chairmanship of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Global Migration Group would convene a public symposium in Geneva. The meeting would include a specific focus on how to ground migration policies in human rights and again the participation of a representative of the Committee was very important.

Mr. Ndiaye noted that during the second part of the year, one key task for the Office would be to facilitate the Global Migration Group’s joint preparations for, and participation in, the Fourth Global Forum on Migration and Development, due to be held from 8 to 11 November in Mexico.

ABDELHAMID EL JAMRI, Chairperson of the Committee, welcomed all initiatives taken in order to promote the International Convention for the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families in the context of the twentieth anniversary of the Convention and thanked the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for their support and attention to the issues affecting migrant workers and their rights. The issue of human rights in the context of migration was increasingly being debated at the national and international levels and the more this happened, the more it made the question of ratifying the Convention even more relevant. Mr. El Jamri regretted that there were only 43 States parties to the Convention, adding that this was also an opportunity to launch a call to all States to ratify the Convention. The Convention was not only a defence mechanism but also an instrument to help States construct better migration policies. Today there were more than 200 million migrant workers, and around 60 per cent lived in “developed” regions of the world. Given globalization, the mobility of workers had become a key element in development and prosperity of all regions of the world.

Mr. El Jamri said that economic statistics and research on this subject demonstrated that the protection of migrant workers reinforced the positive impact on migration and on the development and productivity at the national level. It was in the interest of all States to elaborate norms and adopt policies to protect the rights of migrant workers. The economic crisis had shown the need to protect those workers and the Convention offered a detailed legal framework to help protect the rights of migrant workers. This Convention was a tool for social cohesion and spread the idea of global tolerance. Everyone had to be treated with respect globally. Given that the respect of migrant workers helped destination countries as well as host countries and workers as well as employers, it was recommended that States ratified this Convention. National legislative systems did not sufficiently protect non-nationals and the Convention offered a detailed judicial framework applicable under all circumstances. Mr. El Jamri also welcomed the expanded 14-member Committee as a sign of the vitality and importance of its work. He added that the new experts brought added expertise and experiences and strengthened the Committee in a way that allowed it to face different challenges in reviewing reports and in all other areas.

Discussion With Committee Members

Several Committee members took the opportunity to update the Committee on what they had been doing to promote the Convention since their last meeting. In particular, two Experts spoke about their work with migration to the United States and outlined concerns they had about the treatment of migrants there, in particular a new law passed by the state of Arizona.

Another Expert also spoke about migration policies in the United States, including a pilot plan in Iowa in which 105 people were arrested without having due process, brought to buildings used for cattle auctions, where they had unofficial hearings and were represented by people who were not competent to defend them. Some of the migrants were allowed to stay in the United States for humanitarian reasons, but even those were required to wear monitoring bracelets. The Expert asked if the Committee could take a public stance on such issues in cases where rights were clearly being violated.

Discussion With a Non-Governmental Organization

A representative of Amnesty International raised concerns regarding the situation of migrants in Algeria. Algeria had become a country of transit for those immigrants looking to move to Europe and in many cases they were intercepted in Algeria. In the face of such pressures, Algerian authorities had introduced legal measures to combat smuggling, but some of those measures failed to comply with Algeria’s human rights obligations. In 2008 the Algerian parliament passed law 08-11 which regulated the entry, stay and movement of foreigners in Algeria. Amnesty International had three main concerns with the application of that law which included problems with the appeals process for deportation orders, the establishment of waiting centres and the duration of detention orders, and criminalization of third parties who may assist migrants, including charitable organizations who may provide legal, medical, or humanitarian assistance.

Law 08-11 did call for an appeals process when deportation orders were given by the Interior Ministry, but the right does not appear to be guaranteed when orders are issued by walis, or governors. This appeared to increase arbitrary treatment of migrants. Established waiting centres had also been established, but again when deportation orders were issued by walis, there was no limit to the number of times that governors could extend the detention order, leading to concerns that migrants may be held in prolonged, indefinite detention with no right of appeal or other remedy. Law 08-11 also prescribed severe penalties for people smugglers or other people who helped foreigners enter, remain and circulate illegally in Algeria. The law provided for five years in prison and stiff penalties if found guilty. As an example, there were press reports that a medical professional was sentenced to two years in prison for using medicine to help Sub Saharan migrants. Amnesty International found the law to be excessively severe.

Thousands of migrants were reported to be deported every year by the Algerian authorities. Press reports, citing police sources, indicated that some 35,000 migrants from 55 African and Arab countries were arrested in the period 2001 to 2007 and that some 32,000 people were deported. More recent media reports, citing official sources, suggested that some 4,500 irregular migrants who entered Algeria through the country’s borders with Morocco, Mali, and Niger were arrested and expelled in 2008.

In many cases, these deportations appeared to be conducted without adequate safeguards, including any right or possibility of appeal, and so constituted collective expulsions. In some cases, those deported included individuals in need of international protection who were not permitted any opportunity to challenge their expulsion and it appeared that it was not taken into consideration whether their expulsion would expose them to serious human rights abuses.

There had also been allegations of torture and ill treatment against migrants. These allegations included media reports citing Nigerian survivors who said they were left by Algerian authorities in an inhospitable desert area without adequate food and water. Some of those deported had also been recognized by UNHCR as refugees. In addition there had been allegations of sexual abuse of women by Algerian law enforcement officials.

Amnesty International outlined several recommendations for improving Law 08-11. These included amending the law so that all individuals had the right to challenge their expulsion order and that individuals providing legal, medical or humanitarian assistance were not themselves criminalized. The law could also be changed so as to guarantee that detention was used as a last resort and for the shortest period of time. They also recommended that provisions criminalizing illegal exit from Algeria be repealed, called for an immediate halt of arbitrary deportation of asylum seekers, and called for independent and impartial investigations into allegations of torture and ill treatment by Algerian law enforcement and to bring those responsible to justice.

Committee experts asked the Amnesty International representative a number of follow-up questions including a request for more information on the details of Law 08-11, whether there were any figures on the number of migrants who had been deported from Europe to Algeria, and whether there were any official documents that could be used as reference material regarding deportees left in the desert. Experts also expressed interest in whether Amnesty International had approached the Algerian Government about these allegations and whether there were mass problems with the walis, as well as the criminalization of illegal exits from Algerian territory.

In answering the questions, Amnesty International said there were no statistics on the number of deportees who were left in the desert because it was difficult to police these areas. The walis, or local governors, were allowed to order deportations, but they did not follow the same process as the Minister of the Interior, which allowed for appeals and those facing deportation to contact their nation’s diplomatic service. The process with the walis removed the appeals process, allowing someone to be removed very quickly and without procedural safeguards. The established waiting centres also posed a problem because again the walis could extend the detention orders without limit and without due process.

For use of the information media; not an official record

CMW10/002E