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comMITTEE ON MIGRATION ISSUESOEA/Ser.W
CIDI/CAM/doc.5/13 rev.2
18February 2014
Original: Spanish
TABLE OF DIAGNOSTIC FORMS SUBMITTED BY THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE
INTER-AMERICAN PROGRAM FOR THE PROMOTION AND PROTECTION OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF MIGRANTS, INCLUDING MIGRANT WORKERS AND THEIR FAMILIES
(Compilation by the Secretariat of inputs submitted
by the participants of the Inter-American Programupto February 18, 2014)
AG/RES. 2738 (XLII-O/12) “Strengthening the Topic of Migration in the OAS: Establishment of the Committee on Migration Issues” instructs the Committee on Migration Issues (CAM) to “review, implement, and monitor the Inter-American Program for the Promotion and Protection of the Human Rights of Migrants, Including Migrant Workers and their Families, with a view to optimizing its objectives.”
In the context of the CAM, some of the organs, agencies, and entities of the OAS and other organizations identified as participants in the Inter-American Program for the Promotion and Protection of the Human Rights of Migrant Workers and Their Families, AG/RES. 2141 (XXXV-O/05), attended meetings of the Working Group to Review the Program to present their perspective on the aforementioned program.
This document compiles the Diagnostic Forms submitted by the following organs, agencies, and entities:
ANNEXI
- Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM)
- Secretariat for Multidimensional Security (SMS)
- Department of Public Security (DPS)
- Summits Secretariat
- Executive Secretariat for Integral Development
- Department of Human Development, Education, and Culture–Office of Education and Culture
ANNEX II
- Executive Secretariat for Integral Development
- Department of Social Development and Employment
- Inter-American Children's Institute (IIN)
- International Labour Organization (ILO)
- Department of International Affairs (DIA)
ANNEX III
- Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)
- International Organization for Migration (IOM)
- Secretariat for Political Affairs
- OAS Department for Effective Public Management
- Universal Civil Identity Program in the Americas (PUICA)
- Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR)
ANNEXIV
- International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
- Inter-American Institute of Human Rights (IIDH)
- United Nations High Commisioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
Note: As part of the consultations on the outstanding actors of the Inter-American Program, in September 2013, aninvitation was forwarded to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights of Migrants, François Crépeau for his participation or a representative, either virtual or in person at the CAM, as well as the DiagnosticFormat program to completed by the participants. Consultation was reiterated in January 2014 with no response to date.
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TABLE OF DIAGNOSTIC FORMS SUBMITTED BY THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE INTER-AMERICAN PROGRAM FOR
THE PROMOTION AND PROTECTION OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF MIGRANTS, INCLUDING MIGRANT WORKERS AND THEIR FAMILIES
Organ/Area
Variable / Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM) / Secretariat for Multidimensional Security (SMS) / Summits Secretariat / Office of Education and Culture (OEC)
Diagnóstico General sobre el Programa/
Global Diagnosis of the Program
Diagnóstico General sobre el Programa/
Global Diagnosis of the Program / Since the adoption of the Inter-American Program in 2005, the dynamics of migration from and within the Americas have changed significantly, particularly from a gender perspective:
- In 19 of 29 countries of the region, women now make up more than 50% of migrants;
- Women are more likely to migrate for work in either the service or care sectors;
- Women make up the majority of part-time migrant workers and as such have less access to the benefits of full-time employment, including job security, health insurance, pension, leave time, maternity benefits, training opportunities, etc.;
- As the vast majority of domestic and care workers, women are concentrated in a sector that is largely unregulated and informal, with less recourse in cases of violation of their labor rights or physical/ sexual/psychological harassment.
A thorough understanding of the gender dimensions of migration –including the reasons for migrating, method of migration, situation of migrants in the destination country (work and life), social and economic integration and impact, remitting behavior, security and risk of violence and/or discrimination, family reunification and the decision to return– is essential to the design of an Inter-American Program that responds to the current reality of migration in the Americas and places the protection of human rights at the forefront of the Program’s goals. / The Inter-American Program for the Promotion and Protection of the Human Rights of Migrants is the result of a long journey by the OAS member states. It dates back to the First Summit of the Americas, in Miami, Florida, in 1994. Ten years later, in 2004, the General Assembly, in its resolution AG/RES. 2027 (XXXIV-O/04), entitled “The Human Rights of All Migrant Workers and Their Families," instructed the Permanent Council to renew the mandate of the Working Group of the Committee on Juridical and Political Affairs to Prepare the Inter-American Program so that it might prepare, as soon as possible, the draft Inter-American Program on the basis of a proposal submitted by the IACHR and the proposals of the member states, the specialized organizations, and other entities, in accordance with the mandate of the Third Summit of the Americas.
Following a long process of dialogue and negotiation to reach consensus on the principles, objectives, and activities that should be included, on June 7, 2005, the General Assembly adopted the Program. Over the past eight years, since its adoption, the OAS has modified its internal structure so as to respond more efficiently to present-day challenges in the region. Therefore, the Program's mandates and activities and their assignment within the Organization must be reviewed, updated, and redistributed. / Since the First Summit of the Americas, held in Miami in 1994, the Heads of State and Government have committed themselves to guaranteeing protection of the human rights of all migrant workers. Subsequently, at the Second Summit, held in Santiago, Chile, in 1998, the Heads of State and Government reaffirmed their commitment to protecting the human rights of migrants. At the Third Summit, held in Quebec City in 2001, by way of the Quebec Plan of Action (paragraph 42), they mandated the establishment of the Inter-American Program for the Promotion and Protection of the Human Rights of Migrants, Including Migrant Workers and
Their Families.
Subsequently, the Heads of State and Government, meeting at the Special Summit of the Americas (Monterrey, 2004), continued to stress the importance of cooperation among countries of origin, transit, and destination to ensure full protection of the human rights of all migrants. At the Fourth Summit of the Americas (Mar del Plata, 2005), they reaffirmed their commitment to fully support the Inter-American Program for the Promotion and Protection of the Human Rights of Migrants.
At the two most recent summits – Port of Spain (2009) and Cartagena de Indias (2012) – they reaffirmed the importance of protecting the human rights of migrants and their support for government policies in that regard. / The main involvement of the Office of Education and Culture (DHDEC/SEDI) in this Program has been through execution of a single three-year project, “Education of migrant children and youth,” in 2009-2011; thus, we do not believe we are in a position to provide a global diagnosis of the Program. For this reason, what we provide in this section are some of the conclusions of this project that can help to provide a global diagnosis of the situation in the region of policies and programs specifically designed to ensure the right to education of migrant children and youth. On that subject, the above-referenced project found the following:
-Valid, up-to-date data on this population (migrant children and youth and their educational situations) are very scarce
-Relatively few member states have specific legislation or policies related to the education of migrant children and youth, although the legislation and policies of many member states may be interpreted to cover migrant children and youth as part of the broad population that is guaranteed the right to education, and migrant children and youth may be included in specific laws and policies targeting other types of disadvantaged populations (for example, out-of-school youth or indigenous populations). Nine of the 23 responding countries had no policy, action, nor program attending to this population.
-In many cases the legislation or policy does not mention nor address the topic of education of migrant children and youth. That is, this population may be covered, but often as a subsidiary of other compensatory education policies, such as those covering low-income or indigenous populations.
-Where programs for this population exist, in many cases they do not appear to have clearly assigned resources in public budgets.
-In many cases teachers do not receive any special preparation to help them teach students from other countries and cultural contexts effectively..
-The precarious situation in which many migrants live suggests the need to consider an integrated public policy response, involving various social services as well as education.
-The achievements of a number of specific programs can be summarized mainly as international cooperation actions, including the exchange of methodologies and information on students, particularly among countries with a shared border, such as Mexico and the United States.
CONTEXTO/
CONTEXT
CONTEXTO/ CONTEXT
CONTEXTO/ CONTEXT
CONTEXTO/ CONTEXT
CONTEXTO/ CONTEXT / The CIM is a hemispheric policy forum for women’s rights and gender equality. As such, the Commission’s work focuses mainly on supporting Member States in formulating, implementing and monitoring legislation and public policy that helps to make their commitments at the international and inter-American levels a reality for women.
CIM’s previous work on migration-related issues has focused exclusively on the issue of trafficking, specifically a hemispheric assessment of the issue of trafficking of women, with a focus on trafficking for sexual exploitation.
Since 2005, CIM has had little opportunity to address the issue of migration, for two reasons:
- Lack of expertise within the CIM Secretariat; and
- Lack of specific funds dedicated to migration-related projects.
While the CIM Secretariat does now possess the technical expertise necessary to effectively address the issue of migration, the Commission is not recognized as an authority on this topic and thus it would be difficult to obtain specific funds for migration-related projects. There are however a number of international and regional organizations with existing expertise and experience in gender and migration with which CIM can partner, including the International Labor Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and the International Organization for Migration, as well as a number of academic and research centers. / In the specific arena of security, first the Department of Public Security should be entrusted with the activities to fight human trafficking and protect the victims of that crime, because in the new structure that department is in charge of those topics. Secondly, it is necessary to incorporate into the Program new migrant protection needs that stem, in part, from new migration trends, but also from the nontraditional threats posed by organized crime to public security in general and to migrants in particular. / The Summits Secretariat has as its primary functions maintaining the institutional memory of the Summits process; supporting the host country in preparations for the next Summit; facilitating follow-up on Summits mandates; lending technical support to the Summit Implementation Review Group (SIRG); coordinating the activities of the Joint Summit Working Group (JSWG); coordinating participation in the Summits process; and strengthening ties between the Summits and the various inter-American ministerial processes.
In the Program adopted in 2005, the Summits Secretariat was assigned two specific activities:
- Assist the Committee on Juridical and Political Affairs (CAJP), participate in the follow-up and coordination of this Program, and present the results to the Summits Process.
- Administer, under the supervision of the CAJP, the specific fund of voluntary contributions to be established for execution of Program activities assigned to the organs, agencies, and entities of the OAS.
When the Inter-American Program for the Promotion and Protection of the Human Rights of Migrants was adopted in 2005, it instructed the then-Office of Education, Culture, Science and Technology to (1) promote horizontal cooperation to ensure the integration of migrant children and youth into schools and the training of teachers on the issue; (2) promote exchange and training of teachers working in the field of bilingual and intercultural education; (3) foster modernization of curricular standards to introduce standards on job-related skills; (4) include human rights education for migrants and their families within the activities of the Inter-American Program on Education for Democratic Values and Practices; and (5) consider periodically organizing a seminar to train public officials in immigration policies and human rights and the detection of forged documents.
Under instruction (4), when external funding was obtained through a subgrant from CIDA’s contribution to the OAS to support activities related to migration, the project “Education of Migrant Children and Youth” was developed. We considered the project to respond both to the Inter-American Program on Education for Democratic Values and Practices, which we coordinate, and to the Program on the rights of migrant workers and their families. This three-year project (2009-2011) sought to document, systematize, and disseminate the lessons learned from promising policies, programs and practices aimed at providing quality educational experiences for migrant children and youth. The expected results involved enhanced awareness and capacity within Ministries of Education to develop, implement, and evaluate programs that improve the educational opportunities and outcomes of migrant children and youth. These were achieved through obtaining the following outputs:
- A mapping of public policy in the region on the education of migrant children and youth” based on a review of previous research and literature as well as a survey of the Ministries of Education of Member States, to which responses were collected from 24 member states.
- Three in-depth case studies of the experiences, needs and challenges of migrant communities with respect to education in three member states: Argentina (mainly migrants from Paraguay and Bolivia), Costa Rica (mainly migrants from Nicaragua), and Antigua and Barbuda (mainly migrants from Dominican Republic, Dominica and Guyana).
- A small regional workshop held in May 2011 with officials and experts from Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Costa Rica, Mexico, and the International Organization for Migration identified challenges and made recommendations for public policy actions.
- Publication of a final report titled “Education of Migrant Children and Youth in the Americas: Current Situation and Challenges”, synthesizing the mapping, the case studies, and the conclusions of the international seminar. To read this report, please click here (only available in Spanish).
In addition, also in the context of the Inter-American Program on Education for Democratic Values and Practices Program, (funding by the U.S. Mission to the OAS and the Inter-American Committee on Education through CP/Res.831), we carried out the following pertinent actions:
- A special edition of the Online Bulletin of the Program was prepared and disseminated widely to provide information and resources on education for migrant children and youth in the Americas.
- Two horizontal cooperation missions pertinent to strengthening the provision of educational services for migrant children and youth were funded:
B) the General Direction of Indigenous Education of the Secretariat of Public Education (Mexico), the Ministry of Education of Chile, the Human Rights Defense Organization (Ecuador) and the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights (Costa Rica), to assist in the curriculum design process proposed for indigenous education in Mexico, train teachers for the development of an intercultural citizenry, and contribute to the integral vision between countries with indigenous population through international exchange (2009-2010). See the report related to this mission here (only available in Spanish.)
FORTALEZAS/ STRENGTHS
FORTALEZAS/ STRENGTHS / CIM’s specific mandate and role as a hemispheric policy forum means that it is best positioned to contribute effectively in the following areas:
- Support the development of policies and programs designed to protect the human rights of migrant women and their families, and to combat violence against migrant women and girls;