Statement of the International Migrants’ Alliance on the 2013 International Migrants Day

Consolidate our ranks! Resist imperialist offensives against migrants and people!

 

Migrants all over the world must prepare for the future bodes of heightened offensives of imperialist globalization against the rights, dignity and wellbeing of migrants and refugees, and all other exploited and oppressed people.

 

The end of the World Trade Organization (WTO) 9^th Ministerial Conference in Bali, Indonesia resulted to a deal that will further open up economies of many underdeveloped and developing countries to imperialist plunder, and intensify the implementation of the destructive policies of neoliberalization globalization – all in a desperate attempt of imperialist, chiefly the United States, to salvage the crisis-ridden capitalist system.

 

While the WTO has been given a new lease on life after negotiations of the 2002 Doha Round failed, migrants and people are set to experience yet another round of liberalization, deregulation and privatization that shall cover all goods and services, including trading migrants as commodities.

 

Next year, the Bali Round shall start to be threshed out with the US determined to quell opposition to the all-out opening not only of goods and services but the processes involved in trading. To further reinforce, or in the minimum to act as a fail-safe mechanism in case the Bali Round suffers the fate of the Doha Round, the US pushes for even more sinister deals in regional, bilateral or plurilateral platforms such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) or the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

 

The renewed neoliberal globalization offensives of imperialists translate to further displacement, erosion of livelihood, violations of rights and the intensification of the commodification and modern-day slavery of migrants.

 

Labor-sending countries will further expand and systematize their respective labor export programs to gain the most profit economically through government earnings and migrant’s remittance, and also to stave off socio-political discontent stemming from widespread poverty. On the other hand, labor-receiving countries shall gain from cheaper labor that migrants provide while also holding hostage to their whims labor-sending countries dependent on their labor market.

 

But the commodification and modern-day slavery of migrants is being downplayed by imperialists through its slogan of migration for development.

 

In their effort to deodorize the indignity and inhumanity of the current nature of migration that is forced and not a practice of a right, imperialists through the UN High Level Dialogue on Migration and Development play up the illusion of development through the export of labor. This framework has been challenged and debunked by grassroots migrant workers in the series of Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) that started in 2007 but imperialists and those highly-dependent on labor export continue to hold on to such agenda despite its grave impacts to the rights and condition of migrants.

 

With the UNHLD giving a fresh mandate for the GFMD, the GFMD will again attempt next year in Sweden to make itself legitimate and with it, its principle of migration for development.

 

With such signs of more portent policies to come, grassroots migrants and advocates must continue to expand our ranks and consolidate our position against neoliberal globalization and its agenda on migration.

 

The International Migrants Day is a significant occasion to declare our war against neoliberal globalization.

 

This day started with the approval of the UN Convention for the Protection of the Rights of All Migrants and Their Families. With the developments in the WTO and in the GFMD, it is very clear that the spirit and letter of the said convention is not respected and translated into policies that are rights-based.

 

This day, the IMA celebrates the victories that grassroots migrants have gained in our struggles against concrete issues we face and in exposing the true nature and agenda of imperialism. However, we also mark this day as a signal for our heightened resistance against the intensified neoliberal globalization offensives.

We mark this day with our continued struggle against forced migration and commodification of labor and for the attainment of justice, human rights, freedom and democracy through out movement and solidarity.