By: Staff Writer
July 9, 2024
CARICOM is aiming to have a development framework on migration in place for early February, 2025, so they can re-engage heads of government, said the assistant secretary general of the CARICOM Community.
Alison Drayton, said on a panel workshop, “Towards a Regional Approach to a Migration Policy in the Caribbean,” held in Trinidad and Tobago, that she hopes the heads of government will make it a significant part of their agenda next year February.
She added: “But that, of course, depends on your work as Member States to give your input and your feedback to the policy. So, I just want to signal that we are working against a hard deadline. With the free movement of peoples, the heads would very much like to see the framework that will underpin some of that work. It is very evident what the region has been facing and will continue to face various challenges that affect all of the lives and livelihoods of our citizens.”
Michele Klein-Solomon senior policy advisor to the director general of International Organisation for Migration, also said: “According to official UN statistics, there are some 281 million international migrants in the world today, most international migration is safe, orderly and regular, contrary to what you might read in the news… The number of those who need to leave their countries or communities of origin, to seek safe and productive lives continue to rise as conflicts, political instability, situations of human rights violations, lack of economic opportunity, poverty and inequality proliferate around the world.”
She continued: “The number of people undertaking dangerous journeys, because they see no alternative to doing so, is increasing, and should be of concern to all of us in the room here today.”
Klein-Solomon further underscored the need to define labour skills gaps and for governments to “harness the benefits” of migration for a safe and prosperous sustainable future for all.
Michael Fitzpatrick, deputy chief of mission, embassy of the United States in Trinidad and Tobago, also said: “The migration that we see today in the Caribbean community and around the world is complex, dynamic and mixed. Today’s migration flows include not only short-term visitors and economic migrants but also refugees and asylum seekers. The drivers of this migration and displacement in the Caribbean are just as complex, dynamic and mixed and include not only poverty and inequality, but also structural violence and climate related events.”
Fitzgerald Hinds, minister for national security for Trinidad and Tobago, also said: “I’m acutely aware of the complexities and the many challenges that migration presents to our respective nations here in the region, I am equally aware of its potential for sustainable human and economic development…. It touches our society and many facets of our existence, from economic development and social cohesion to national security and cultural diversity. We are here in this collective effort to resolve, broach a resolution if we can to one of the world’s burgeoning and pressing issues that of migration.”