Bangladesh Co-Hosts Migration Event at UN with IOM

Press Release

International Migrants Day

Bangladesh Co-hosts migration event at UN with IOM

New York, 18 December, 2017:

Today, to celebrate the International Migrants Day, an event entitled, “Demystifying migration: Launch of the World Migration Report 2018 and the Migration Governance Indicators” was held at the United Nations Headquarters, organised by International Organization for Migration (IOM). Bangladesh co-hosted the event along with Portugal.

Director General of IOM Ambassador William Lacy Swing was the Key-note speaker of the event while the Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN Ambassador Masud Bin Momen and Permanent Representative of Portugal Ambassador Francisco Duarte Lopes delivered the welcome remarks. During this event, the World Migration Report 2018 was launched and the Migration Governance Indicators of IOM were introduced.

Ambassador Masud mentioned that Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina put special importance on reducing the trends of irregular and unsafe migration. He quoted from Prime Minister’s message on this occasion: “The Global Community must work together and in coordination to implement the rules and measures for countering human trafficking and lowering the recruitment costs for labor migration to a tolerable level”.

Ambassador said, “Bangladesh is one of the largest countries of origin -in national wealth creation and development, the role of remittance has been immense. We constantly advocate in favour of ethical recruitment, opening up of new legal pathways, responsible migration, decent work, protection of migrants’ rights including that of their family members, lowering the cost of remittance sending, portability of earned benefits, diaspora engagements and informed & sustainable voluntary return. Migration has been embedded in our national development policy to pave our journey to become a Middle-Income Country by 2021 and a Developed Country by 2041”.

Emphasizing on migrants’ rights, the Ambassador said, “Migration requires global response for better managing the phenomenon through better understanding, streamlining migration into respective national policies, enhancing international cooperation and bolstering the global governance of migration through adopting a global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration”.

Bringing the issue of forced displacement in the context of the Rohingya crisis the PR said, “Bangladesh Government, besides bilateral engagement with Myanmar to solve the problem, despite her resource scarcity has engaged its fullest strength to cope with the humanitarian needs at the ground in intensive partnership with other Member States, relevant UN Agencies including IOM and other stakeholders. The robust role of IOM is praiseworthy”.

Ms. Marie McAuliffe, Head of Migration Research Division of IOM; William Allen from University of Oxford, Jorge Bravo, Chief of Demographic Analysis Branch of DESA (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs) and Ms. Susame Melde, Senior Analyst & David Martineau, Policy Officer of IOM spoke at the event as Pane Discussants.

Mrs. Eva Akerman Borje, Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General on International Migration was the Moderator of the Panel Discussion.

All the Speakers praised the Report and said that this evidence based report would help incorporate migration in national policy framing.

After this programme, the PR joined a discussion event organised by UNICEF where UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, President General Assembly Miroslav Lajčák, Director General of IOM Ambassador William Lacy Swing and William Anthony Kirsopp Lake, Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) were present. Ambassador Masud also joined the Global Migration Film Festival of UNESCO. Besides, on this occasion, the Mission participated in other migration related events at the UN as well.

***