First Meeting of States Parties

to Convention on Migrant Workers

1^st Meeting (AM)

STATES PARTIES TO CONVENTION PROTECTING MIGRANT WORKERS

HOLD FIRST MEETING AT HEADQUARTERS

Elect 10-Member Main Committee

Migrant workers and their families were particularly vulnerable to discrimination, exploitation and abuse, and now an International Convention can respond to their vulnerability, Bacre Ndiaye, Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the first meeting of States parties to the Convention this morning.

The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, adopted without a vote by the General Assembly on 18 December 1990, is widely regarded as a major contribution to setting standards on the rights of migrants.  Its entry into force on 1 July capped a process that began in the 1940s at the international level with the development and adoption by the International Labour Organization (ILO) of new global norms for the protection of the rights of migrants.

With 24 States parties so far, the Convention sets minimum standards for protecting the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of migrant workers.  Such workers are defined as persons who are to be engaged, are engaged or have been engaged in remunerated activity in a State of which he or she is not a national.  Its binding international standards not only address the treatment, welfare and human rights of documented and undocumented migrants, but also the obligations and responsibilities of sending and receiving States.

According to the ILO, there are approximately 60 to 65 million migrant workers engaged in a remunerated activity outside their country of origin.  With the Convention also providing for the protection of the rights of the members of their families, the number of people who had settled in a country other than their own and who stood to benefit from the protection of the Convention might be up to 175 to 180 million worldwide, the ILO says.

Opening the meeting on behalf of the Secretary-General, Mr. Ndiaye said that in an era of globalization, migration had reached new proportions and now represented an estimated 3 per cent of the world population.  Nearly all countries were concerned with international migration, whether as a country of origin, transit or destination, or as a combination of those, he said.

Stressing that the Convention was aimed at preventing and eliminating the exploitation of migrant workers throughout the entire process of migration, he said it sought to put an end to the illegal or clandestine recruitment and trafficking of migrant workers and to discourage the employment of migrant workers in an irregular or undocumented situation.

He said it “breaks new ground” in defining rights for certain categories of migrant workers and their families, including:  frontier workers, who resided in a neighbouring State to which they returned daily, or at least once a week; seasonal workers; seafarers employed on vessels registered in a State other than their own; workers on offshore installations which were under the jurisdiction of a State other than their own; itinerant workers; migrants employed for a specific project; and self-employed workers.

The main purpose of today’s meeting was to elect the 10 members of its Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.  The Committee is mandated to examine reports submitted by States parties on the legislative, judicial, administrative and other measures they had taken to give effect to the provisions of the Convention.

Elected Chairman of the new Committee, by acclamation, was Cheick Sidi Diarra (Mali).  Elected as Vice-Chairmen was Felipe H. Paolillo (Uruguay).

Following adoption of the draft rules of procedure, all 10 Committee members were elected to serve for terms of either two or four years, in their personal capacities, beginning on 1 January 2004.  The five to serve for two-year terms were drawn by lot by the Chairman.

The Committee members are as follows:  Francisco Alba (Mexico), 4 years; Jose Serrano Brillantes (Philippines), two years; Francisco Carrion-Mena (Ecuador), four years; Ana Elizabeth Cubias Medina (El Salvador), four years; Anamaria Dieguez (Guatemala), two years; Ahmed Hassan El-Borai (Egypt), four years; Abdelhamid El Jamri (Morocco), four years; Arthur Shatto Gakwandi (Uganda), two years; Prasad Kariyawasam (Sri Lanka), two years; and Azad Taghizade (Azerbaijan), two years.

Also in accordance with the rules of procedure, the credentials of representatives and the names of members of a delegation should be submitted to the Secretary-General, if possible, not less than one week before the date fixed for the opening of the Meetings.  It was decided that representatives of other States parties that had not yet submitted names should be entitled to participate provisionally in the Meeting.  The Chairman, meanwhile, urged the parties to see to it that their credentials were submitted to the Secretary-General as soon as possible.

The next meeting of the States parties to the Convention will be announced.

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