Conclusions Peoples Global Action on International Migration, Development and Human Rights

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The Global Compact on Migration took an important space during the debates at the Peoples Global Action on International Migration, Development and Human Rights during the Migration week in Marrakech (December 1-11, 2018). Both in the plenary sessions and the workshops. It illustrates the importance that an international framework for the protection and regulation of migration should have. It also represents our diversity within the PGA, similar to the current civil society gathered in Marrakech: a committed civil society ready to exchange and debate despite divergent points of view. Please see the declarations below in French, English, Arabic, Spanish

FrenchDownload
ArabicDownload
SpanishDownload
EnglishDownload

Update Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) Session on the Violations with Impunity of the Human Rights of Migrant and Refugee Peoples

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On July 8, 2017, the official opening of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal Session on The violations with impunity of the Human Rights of Migrants and Refugee peoples (program) was carried out in the city of Barcelona. The call for action disseminated by TMP-E and TNI focuses its reasons on the necessity “to give visibility to the people of migrant persons as an inviolable subject of rights; to identify and judge the “chain” of co-responsibility along the migratory route leading to the violation of migrant people’s human rights; and to urgently provide and foster adequate measures for access to justice”.

Please see documents of different hearings in 2017-2018

  1. Opening Session – Barcelona, 7-8 July 2017
    The opening act has been promoted by a social platform that includes more than 100 organizations, associations and social movements (see the list of the endorsment) which have been convened by the Transnational Migrant Platform (TMP) and the Transnational Institute of Amsterdam (TI).The Indictment presented to the Tribunal has been supported by a broad spectrum of testimonies and exemplary cases that have reconstructed the structural factors and policies that determine the vulnerability, dependency, disappearance and denial of the future of migrants and refugee people.The general structure and doctrinal orientation of the Indictment has been built around the need to investigate and document the root causes of migration and forced displacement; routes and violations of human rights; the border regime; the policies of exclusion characterising the Fortress Europe, with special attention to the transversal factors, which are the gender issue and the minors.In its concluding remarks, the panel of judges of the PPT, composed by Bridget Anderson (UK), Carlos Beristain (Spain), Jennifer Chiriga (Zimbabwe), Leticia Gutiérrez (Mexico), has made reference to doctrinal aspects of migration, shared experiences of resistance and has formulated, for this Session, perspectives and methodology of work, in consideration of the PPT mission and jurisprudence.As stated by Gianni Tognoni, Secretary General of the PPT, “this opening Session, which will be concluded by the end of 2018, requires a significant extension of the support networks, an intensified collaboration with groups of experts in the different sectors, a rigorous coordination of the various steps and initiatives. This process aims to become a tool for active presence in society, a cultural, political and legal literacy, an indispensable condition for the recognition of migrant and refugee people as inviolable subjects of law”.

2. Hearing of Palermo, 18-20 December 2017
The firstHearing which begins in Palermo, will be dedicated to migratory flows in the Mediterranean, Europe’s southern border, now reduced to a cemetery of horrors. 

3. Hearing of Paris, 4-5 January 2018
This hearing will look at the internal borders of the European Union and the related policies and practices of various member states. 

  • The Indictment (French)
  • The Sentence of the Tribunal (French – Spanish)
  • More information on the hearing can be found at the website of Intercoll (only available in French)

4. Hearing of Barcelona, 29 June – 1 July 2018
In the framework of the Session on the violation of the rights of migrants and refugees, the hearing on the “No rights” spaces will take place in the city of Barcelona from June 29 to July 1, along three axes: Southern border with Spain, Gender, Minors and young people

The Declaration  (Spanish)of the PPT panel of the judges that heard in Barcelona, on the occasion of the hearing on “non-law” spaces (29 June – 1 July 2018) is available in Spanish. Representatives of associations and communities of migrants reported numerous cases of violation of human rights occurring at the southern border of Spain and more generally against women, LGTB communities and minors. 

5. Hearing in London, 3 – 4 November 2018
The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal will hold a Hearing on The hostile environment on trial, with a focus on the working condition of migrants and refugees. The hearing is part of the Session on The violation of human rights of migrants and refugee peoples (2017-2019):

TMP-E Recommendations to Global Compact on Migration

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A Platform for Action towards the Global Compact on Migration: Reclaiming the Human Rights of Migrant Peoples

TMP-E Submission to the Regional Consultation in Europe on the proposed Global Compact on Migrants

“Migrants and refugees over decades have contributed enormously to the economic and political development of Europe as well as to their countries of origin. Some have undertaken hunger strikes for basic rights such as family reunion and led struggles against detention and deportation. Many today affirm their human rights in struggles such as undocumented migrants and their undocumented children, those working as domestic workers and the care sector, in industry factories, as agricultural workers on Europe’s farms, as workers in the informal sector, as construction workers building our homes and offices, as workers in service industries such as hotel and catering and tourism, sexual work or as seafarers on Europe’s ships and as workers on Europe’s oil rigs”. From International Call for the Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) on the  Rights of Migrant and Refugees Peoples

On September 19, 2016, the United Nations General Assembly hosted a High-Level Summit i in New York, marking the first time world leaders, heads of state and government, came together at the UN with the aim of improving international cooperation and governance of migration and refugee issues. The New York Declaration was the outcome of this Summit.  In it, the 193 UN Member States committed to negotiating two “Global Compacts”, a “Global Compact on Refugees” and a “Global Compact on Safe, Regular and Orderly Migration.” We welcome this opportunity to reclaim a human rights based approach to the challenges of migration at this conjuncture of globalization.

Key human rights principles for the agenda of a Global Compact on Migration

Migration (beyond borders or internal) is an intrinsic dimension of human history. A strict “categorization” approach to the human rights of migrants and refugees is complicated by the cross-cutting nature. Migrants will pass through varying legal categories during their journey, particularly when migratory journeys are long and hazardous. We call for more integration of both Global Compacts that strengthens the universality and indivisibility of human rights, and establishes a framework and mechanisms that are human rights based and guarantee mobility options upholding human dignity for ALL peoples. Furthermore, the Global Compact must ensure the human and labour rights of migrants and refugees and their families, their integration into their destination and transit countries, their ability to lead full lives in their places of residence and the promotion of their active role in local, regional and global development.

1. Establish more legal and safe channels of migration

  • Ensure legal, safe and affordable pathways for migration with equal possibilities and rights regardless of gender, age or origin.
  • End the ongoing construction of Fortress Europe and the externalisation and militarisation of borders, especially in North Africa and Turkey – which is daily leading to increased violations of human rights and has turned the Mediterranean and Aegean Sea into a vast mass grave and the site of crimes against humanity

2. Human mobility is a human right, not a crime

  • Migration is NOT a crime – End the criminalization of migrant and refugee peoples and stop detention of migrants and refugees, regardless of migration status.
  • End the policy of forced returns, currently deportation regimes and forced returns are leading to serious violations of human rights.
  • The criminalization of international solidarity is a violation of International Human Rights Law and unacceptable that persons of civil society are prosecuted for providing assistance to refugees and migrants throughout the European continent.

3. Migrants and refugees are key actors in migration and development policies

  • Ensure full participation and representation of migrants and refugees in the articulation, monitoring and assessment of migration and development policy frameworks and mechanisms.
  • Fulfil a gender balance in the formation of these mechanism at all levels.

4. Guarantee the application of full human, labour and social rights

  • Implement full and equal rights for all workers, in all sectors of the economy, regardless of migration status, gender or age which also includes access to justice and public services fully aligned with human rights standards .
  • End ‘circular’ and ‘seasonal’ migration programs which in essence are “temporary” migration programs, that further division and conflict in labour sectors with unequal labour and human rights.
  • Protect the labour rights of migrants and refugees (whether land based or sea based, in rural or urban work) against exploitation and abuse from ‘visa politics’ or/and confiscation of passports by employers or spouses.
  • End the practice of ‘tied’ employment – employment and work must be based on the integrity of the individual person themselves and not dependent on an employer or spouse.
  • Provide regularization mechanisms for undocumented migrants (workers) – acknowledge their economic and social contribution they already put into European societies for so many years.
  • The option for full citizenship should be available to all.

5. Migrants and refugees and their children are part of European society

  • Implement zero tolerance of racism and xenophobia in all its forms.
  • Ensure zero tolerance of hate-speech by politicians and others that portray migrants and refugees as the “threat” to the European way of life.
  • Apply sustained monitoring and action against all forms of discrimination including in the labour market, in politics, in society.
  • Facilitate with support programmes the integration of migrant and refugees and their children in European societies.

6. Put in place a transparent, accountable and binding Global Compact

  • TMP Europe calls for a human rights led vision to building the Global Compact.
  • Halt the disintegration of the people’s’ rights and facilitate the convergence of efforts to Reclaim the rights enshrined in the wide range of United Nations Conventions and Declarations, including the UN Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, as well as the UN Refugee Convention.

In advocating these principles and proposals, the members of TMP-Europe join their efforts to those organisations and movements working to build another world to end inequality, poverty and injustice and lay the foundations for a new paradigm promoting and applying the human rights of migrant and refugee peoples. Numerous movements with their experiments and initiatives are demonstrating that concrete and feasible alternatives are not only urgent and necessary but also possible. Alternatives that will make a crucial difference in the lives not only of migrant and refugee peoples but for all peoples and for the planet. This process for the Global Compact on Migration provides a unique opportunity for governments to act decisively in the direction of reclaiming human rights on migration and development.

The TMP-E starting point in its submission to the Europe Regional Consultation on the Global Compact arises principally from the lived experience of migrants in the context of the region of Europe and in particular in the European Union (EU). TMP-E proposes its recommendations based on the indictment presented at the launch of the Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) Session on the violations with impunity of the human rights of Migrant and Refugee Peoples in Barcelona on July 8, 2017.  The Call for this PPT was endorsed by over 100 migrant and refugee organizations, social movement and human rights networks. The PPT indictment identified four main stages in the migration journey – which are also characterized as “sites with rights” and “sites without rights”. Furthermore, the agendas of Gender and Youth are recognized as integral and cross-cutting in all stages of the migration journey:

1. Root Causes and Forced Displacements and out-migration

The forced displacement crisis is neither spontaneous nor circumstantial. It is linked to several structural causes that underpin the prevailing social and economic model; therefore, these causes (continuing wars, irreversible destruction of the environment, and generating hunger, impoverishment, and climate change) need to be addressed at their core, otherwise the human tragedies that cause forced displacement will not be identified. Currently, the mechanisms used by capital to grab capital gains and maintain its profit rates escalate, extending to exploitation, expulsion by dispossession and necropolitics.

2. Hazardous & Dangerous journeys of transit and closure of legal routes leading to mass deaths.

The “non-law” spaces that are built on European borders allow, people badly wounded in barriers not to be assisted, and human beings in the desert to be abandoned. All this justified by the primacy of the territorial sovereignty of Europe. These are areas where Europe can implement policies that are separate and far removed from human rights. They are “non-law” contexts where legal primacy is exercised by immigration control and where bilateral relations have more weight than international conventions. The impact that these policies have on the violation of the rights of the people who move has increased in the last decade, and has had a significant impact on the right to life.

3. Border regimes that are militarized and criminalized – and operate on exclusionary policy

The creation of non-law spaces by externalising and militarising borders create no-rights zones. The construction of non-law spaces has been accompanied by the victimisation, criminalisation and reification of people on the move, which has formed part of the process of stripping them of their status as people. That is why neither they nor their families have recognised rights and the European states are thus exempt from responsibility for the violence that they exert against the victims and the survivors of the border war.

4. Fortress Europe – living and working conditions that are exclusionary and intensifying levels of racism, xenophobia and islamophobia eroding the possibility of integration.

The consequences of the global financial crisis and the pursuit of neoliberal austerity measures has led to a profound economic and political crisis in Europe. The EU is currently restructuring its economic and political system. Unemployment has reached record levels, especially in “peripheral” countries (Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Bulgaria, Romania and the Baltic States). There is an imbalance between the former Eastern European countries and those of Western Europe in terms of economic and social conditions. Explicit authoritarian and racist political parties are on the rise in several countries and their representatives hold seats in national parliaments and governments. This toxic mix of political and economic conditions has fuelled more overt racism, xenophobia and islamophobia and focusing the blame on migrants and refugees with some sections of European citizens seeing them as the cause of unemployment, insecurity and the pressure on public services, including schools, housing and health services.  

These conditions and accompanying hate speech draws more attention from the media for politicians (men and women) who resort to using prejudice that portrays migrants and refugees as “the threat” to the European way of life and:

  • fail to mention that the budgetary cuts to public services are, in fact, false solutions governments use to address the economic and financial crisis at the European and global level;
  • maintain silence about the impacts of European trade and investment policies (such as the economic partnership agreements or the free trade and investment agreements with Asia, Latin America and Af-rican countries being factors that contribute to the impoverishment of people, collapsing livelihoods and the failure of economies in the global South;
  • hide the fact that some European states are participating and European arms corporations are gaining high profits in the wars in the Middle East which are a main cause for refugee flight and migration.  

In addition to the situation and conditions in Europe and its borders, we see similar conditions arising in areas such as the Mexico-US border regime and the current forced movement of the Rohingya peoples into Bangladesh.  It is these contexts which give urgency to reclaiming a human rights framework as central to a new policy era on migration.

Peoples Opening Borders and Together Building Solidarity 

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Peoples Opening Borders and Together Building Solidarity 

(Spanish below)

July 14, 2017

We, as organisations involved (as Co-Convenors of) in the Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) on the Violations with Impunity of the Human Rights of Migrant and Refugee Peoples launched in Barcelona on July 8th, greet the Caravana Abriendo Fronteras A Melilla((https://abriendofronteras.net/) , (Caravan Opening Borders) as you journey this week from many points of the Spanish State to Melilla, Morocco. We welcome this initiative and action following up on the Caravan to Greece in 2016.

Such joint action of solidarity is a strong challenge to the ongoing repression and militarization of the EU border regimes. Testimonies heard at the PPT have given us graphic evidence of the massive violations of human rights with impunity being perpetrated at the borders of the EU. These indicate a regime of crimes against humanity being committed with the complicity of EU governments resulting in thousands of deaths and disappeared persons in the Mediterranean and Aegean seas – making this one of the biggest mass graves in history.

As migrant and refugee peoples – our journeys start from the root causes of a neocolonial economic model that drives us from our land and livelihoods or from the wars that continue to ravage our countries and our natural resources. In addition, the borders that exclude us in the EU policy of the externalization of borders also extend within the EU Fortress in sites without rights – in detention centers and camps as well as in the prevailing structural racism and increasing islamaphobia and xenophobia that impact on our daily lives.

But we respond to this situation with an invitation to construct a new solidarity built on peoples’ sovereignty! We add our voices in hope to your action and call for the Opening of the EU Borders Now!

Pueblos abriendo fronteras y construyendo solidaridad

14 de julio de 2017

En tanto que organizaciones que participaron como co-convocantes del Tribunal Permanente de los Pueblos (TPP) sobre la violación con impundiad de los derechos humanos de las personas migrantes y refugiadas iaugurado en Barcelona el 8 de julio de 2017, saludamos al Caravana Abriendo Fronteras – A Melilla, (https://abriendofronteras.net/)  que se desplaza desde muchos puntos del Estado español hasta Melilla, Marruecos. Saludamos cálidamente esta iniciativa y acción de seguimiento de la Caravana a Grecia en 2016.

Esta acción conjunta de solidaridad constituye un desafío importante frente a la actual represión y militarización de los regímenes fronterizos de la Unión Europea (UE). Los testimonios escuchados en el TPP nos han brindado evidencias sobre las violaciones masivas de los derechos humanos con impunidad perpetradas en las fronteras de la UE. Indican un régimen de crímenes de lesa humanidad cometidos con la complicidad de los gobiernos de la UE que tienen por resultado la muerte y desaparición de miles de personas en las aguas del Mediterraneo, convirtiéndolo en una de las más grandes fosas comunes de la historia.

Como personas migrantes y refugiadas, nuestros viajes parten de las causas profundas de un modelo económico neocolonial que nos aleja de nuestras tierras y medios de subsistencia o de las guerras que continúan asolando nuestros países y nuestros recursos naturales. Además, las fronteras que nos excluyen en la política de la UE de la externalización de las fronteras también se extienden dentro de la Fortaleza de la UE en lugares sin derechos -en los centros de detención y campamentos-, así como en el racismo estructural imperante y el aumento de la islamofobia y la xenofobia. vida diaria.

¡Pero respondemos a esta situación con una invitación a construir una nueva solidaridad construida sobre la soberanía de los pueblos! ¡Sumamos nuestras voces de esperanza a su acción y exigimos la apertura de las fronteras europeas, Ya!

Transnational Migrant Platform-Europe; MDCD (Morrocan Platform in Europe), ( Euro-Mediterraan Centrum Migratie & Ontwikkeling (EMCEMO),Platform of Filipino Migrant Organisations in Europe; Centro Filipino; KASAPI-HELLAS, Greece, Ugnayan Filipino Sweden, Filipino Community Norway, Geneva Forum for Philippine Concerns; Social Development Cooperative-Ghana, Africa Roots Movement, Kromantse Foundation, RESPECT Network Europe, Comitato de los nuevos desaparcidos; France Amerique Latine (FAL/France); Union Syndicale Solidaries (France) y Transnational Institute (TNI).

Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) on the Violations with Impunity of the Human Rights of Migrant and Refugee Peoples

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Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT)  on the Violations with Impunity of the Human Rights of Migrant and Refugee PeoplesPlace: Aula Magna de la Univesitat de Barcelona (UB), Edifici històric (Pl. Universitat, Gran Via Les Corts Catalanes, 585, Barcelona)
Date: Saturday 8th July 2017
Time: 0900h – 20h

In Europe, those of us who are migrants and refugees from all the regions of the Global South and from Central and Eastern Europe (some of us have lived and worked here for forty years and others arrived more recently) have lived through the various stages of the building of Fortress Europe. We have seen Europe’s policy of exclusion being constructed year after year – a policy that has resulted in a sweeping rollback of people’s human rights; the encampment, forcible detention and deportation; and criminalisation at the militarised southern and eastern borders of Europe. The most visible act is the disappeared persons and the death of thousands of children, brothers and sisters during their journey to reach the borders of southern and eastern Europe: an intolerable crime against humanity. 

To confront this situation we requested the Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) to open a specific Session in 2017 and 2018. 
The PPT accepted and the process will be launched in Barcelona on Saturday 8th July 2017, with members of the Tribunal, testimonials of migrant and refugees as well as experts.

During the different Hearings, the the Tribunal will:

  • Receive and document rigorously the testimonies of the communities of migrants and refugees including their proposals to advance a rights-based approach and an alternative framework.
  • Listen and make visible the cases of violations of the rights of migrants and refugees.
  • Analyse jointly the root causes (including trade and investment agreements, global extractivism as well as the global production chain) of the forced displacement of migrants and refugees.
  • Determine the responsibilities of governments, including the European Union and other official European bodies.
  • Focus the role of transnational corporations in the global labour chain, as well as in the border regimes, and in detention and in deportation.

Contact: pptribunal_eu@riseup.net
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Migrant and Refugee movements and organisations act in solidarity during and beyond the G20

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Migrant and Refugee movements and organisations act in solidarity during and beyond the G20

From Berlin and Barcelona to Hamburg, July 5, 2017

The Transnational Migrant Platform Europe (TMP-E) stands in solidarity with the NoG20 coalition. In the current context of multi-faceted crisis (economic, social, political and ecological) the rights of migrants and refugees have become central in the current political agenda. Also during the G20.

As migrant and refugee organisations and networks, we are taking a strong protagonist role in the defense of our human rights and reclaiming this framework in relation to all the dimensions of our daily realities as migrants and refugees, including especially the impacts and challenges faced by children, youth and women. We have demonstrated our capacity to self-organize not only by risking our lives to cross seas, mountains and deserts, but also by providing analysis and solutions on what forces us to flee our countries of origin – the corporate extractivist economic model, dispossession of livelihood and impoverishment as well as war and climate change. We are also in the forefront of challenging the current rise of racism, islamaphobia and xenophobia and all forms of discrimination.

This week (7-8 July) the Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) in Barcelona will be launched identifying the “chain” of co-responsibility in the entire migration and refugee journey that involves the systematic and widespread violation of human rights with impunity that demand urgent action and access to justice. This PPT session is the latest chapter of a decades long initiative from social movements and civil society organisations that believe in peoples sovereignty and their own capacity to develop new forms of law from below. When the current legal frameworks are incapable or unwilling to ensure justice, the peoples have the responsibility and capacity to develop new proposals.

On July 3rd-4th, migrant-rights organizations along with social movement allies from around the world have convened in Berlin for the People’s Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights (PGA).  During two days, they have reflected on the state of the violations of migrant rights in the different global regions, shared experiences of organizing and strategized for a collective platform at the global level as governments plan to negotiate a Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and regular Migration in 2018.

This shows the current urgency and relevance of the migrant and refugee agenda and the need for coordinated action to make sure that the demands and proposals from migrant and refugees movements and platforms are acknowledged and implemented.

In the last years we have witnessed new forms of action and solidarity. During the massive migrant and refugee movement through the Balkans and continuing in the current context, solidarity networks have acted to facilitate entry to the EU and to address their basic needs. Campaigns are ongoing to end the externalization and militarization of borders, and the criminalization of migrants and refugees.

Solidarity Caravans have also emerged as an effective form of action to make visible the migrant and refugee struggles. Last year in Greece the Caravan Abriendo Fronteras (Opening Borders) successfully reached new constituencies, attracting renewed attention to the situation of migrant and refugees. Now in 2017 (july 19-22) a new Caravan  is organized from the Spanish state to Melilla. Meanwhile, preparations are already underway by civil society organisations for the holding of PGA 2018 in Marrakech, Morocco.

As active participant in some of these initiatives, we in the TMP-E acknowledge the importance of exposing the form of Global Governance that the G20 is proposing – one that entrenches the idea of nation-state ruling in conjunction with private and corporate interest, in particular those of transnational corporations.

We very much welcome the activities of public protest being organised in Hamburg during these days. We want to assure you that our work in Barcelona, Berlin and elsewhere goes in the same direction – towards ensuring peoples sovereignty and solidarity above all. We are with you in the inter-/transnational convergence of struggles, protests and resistance in this historical moment.

Further Information:

Jille Belisario
migrantplatform@gmail.com
https://transnationalmigrantplatform.net/

Launch Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) Session on on the Violations with Impunity of the Human Rights of Migrant and Refugee Peoples in Barcelona on July 7-8, 2017

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Please sign on to the Call for the launch of the Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) Session on the Violations with Impunity of the Human Rights of Migrant and Refugee Peoples.

Before the launching of the Permanent Peoples Tribunal (PPT) it is very important that the Call is widely endorsed. We aim to gather many endorsements which will also be submitted to the PPT. Your endorsement of the Call will be highly appreciated.

Click at the following link for endorsement in French, Spanish, Catalan, Basque, Italian and English
List of Endorsements

Objective of the PPT Session

The objective of this process and Session of the PPT is to identify and judge the “chain” of co-responsibility in the entire migration and refugee journey that involves the systematic and widespread violation of human rights that demand urgent action and access to justice. This is a process that we seek to build from below, with the people most involved and most directly affected – from the migrant and refugee self-organisations.

Consultative process:

The co-convening organizations, Transnational Migrant Platform Europe (TMP-E), Filipino Center-Barcelona, ACATHII-Barcelona, Transnational Institute (TNI), have met together with several organisations in Barcelona in December 2016 and in March 2017 to prepare the initial steps towards the PPT. From these meetings it was agreed to formally request the PPT to hold a Session on the EU Border regime and the violations of the rights of migrant and refugee peoples.

The Permanent Peoples Tribunal have accepted the Petition and the launch of the PPT will be held in Barcelona July 7-8, 2017. The first Hearing of the PPT will be in December (2017) and a second Hearing in 2018.

The preparation of the PPT is open to migrant and refugee organizations; and also to the networks and platforms that support the work of denouncing the violations of human and peoples rights that take place at the multiple borders of Europe and through the entire migratory journey.

Next activities:

  • July 7-8, 2017 Working Session & Public Act – Official Launch of the PPT in Barcelona
  • July-November – further developing the process of the PPT and preparation of Cases
  • December 2017-Holding first Hearing of the PPT/Barcelona (date to be confirmed)

Co-convenors

  • Transnational Migrant Platform Europe (TMP-E)
  • Platform of Filipino Migrant organisations in Europe (Commission for Filipino Migrant Workers (CFMW), Geneva Forum for Filipino Concerns, Centro Filipino-Barcelona, Kasapi-Hellas)
  • MDCD (Morrocan Platform in Europe) ( Euro-Mediterraan Centrum Migratie & Ontwikkeling (EMCEMO),  Al Maghreb, CODENAF, IDD, Khamsa, Migration et Developpement, Na’oura)
  • Social Development Cooperative-Ghana, Africa Roots Movement, Kromantse Foundation
  • RESPECT Network Europe
  • ECVC – Coordinadora Europea de Vía Campesina
  • Associació Catalana per la integració d’homosexuals, bisexuals i transexuals inmigrants (ACATHI)
  • Carovane Migranti
  • Comitato Verità e Giustizia per i Nuovi Desaparecidos
  • Entrepueblos/Entrepobles/Entrepobos
  • Espacio del Inmigrante
  • Fotomovimiento
  • Institut de Drets Humans de Catalunya
  • IRIDIA
  • Mujeres Pa’lante
  • NOVACT
  • Observatorio de Multinacionales en América Latina (OMAL)
  • Sindicato Popular de vendedores ambulantes
  • Stop Mare Mortum
  • SOS Rosarno
  • SUDS
  • Tanquem els CIEs Barcelona
  • Transnational Institute (TNI)
  • Tras la Manta
  • Unitat contra el feixisme i el racisme (UCFR)

Thanking you and in solidarity,
Jille Belisario (TMP-E), Jezabel Goudinoff (PPT Barcelona)
For more information please contact us(PPT Barcelona coordination group) @ pptribunal_eu@riseup.net

For more info on PPT English, Introducción en español

10th People’s Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights

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Register now for the 10th People’s Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights 3-4 July 2017 in Berlin

The Global Coalition on Migration (GCM) in partnership with its member Transnational Migrant Platform-Europe (TMP-E) is excited to announce the international launch of the 10th People’s Global Action (PGA) on Migration, Development and Human Rights. Civil Society representatives from grassroots migrant, labor, policy, and faith-based organizations from around the world will meet during the 10th People’s Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights (PGA) at the headquarters of Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Berlin, Germany.
For more information here.

Statement Transnational Migrant Platform Europe at the OEIGWG UNHRC

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On  the occasion of the Second Session of the OEIGWG mandated to develop “an international legally binding instrument for TNCs and other business enterprises with respect of human rights” 26/9 June 2014

I am Nonoi Hacbang and I speak on behalf of the Transnational Migrant Platform Europe – a network that is a convergence of many migrant communities from all global regions but especially from Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Madame Chair, Maria Fernanda Espinosa, we extend our congratulations to you as the Chair of the OEIGWG, to your team and to the governments and who have brought this process successfully to this 2nd Session.

From the perspective of the Transnational Migrant Platform Europe (TMP Europe), we make this contribution in relation to Transnational Corporations and the issue of Migrant Labour in the Global supply chain.

In particular, we think that that the legally binding instrument must include provisions that address the violations of TNCs in the deployment of migrant labour.

We locate the current major mobility of migrant labour at the core of the neoliberal paradigm which demands massive global mobile labour. From the perspective of Capital, this mobile migrant labour should have restricted access to labour rights, human rights and social rights. And in many national contexts today, the restrictive migration policy reduces many thousands of workers globally to being the so called “undocumented persons” – or the sans papiers. We see this in particular in relation to the United States and Europe. This also applies to refugees who are refused asylum and become undocumented.

It is important to acknowledge the role of the corporate driven economic paradigm as a major driver of out-migration. For example, in this context and accelerated by the policies of the International Financial Institutions (IMF & World Bank), Structural adjustment and debt, as well as the WTO & the FTAs & Investment Agreements – there has been the relentless industrialisation of corporate agriculture and fishing which has resulted in the erosion if not the collapse in many countries and regions of the world of livelihoods from family agriculture or small/family fishing.

Taken together with an export and corporate led economic model with Free Trade Zones, Mining of raw materials, this has also led to widespread unemployment, underemployment, and migration. And more recently the reality of climate change and extreme weather conditions has become a new driver of migration. The continuing war in the Middle East, mainly driven by a policy of securing oil and fossil fuel resources has resulted in millions of refugees being driven from their homes and homelands.

The TNCs leading the export economic model therefore benefit from the profits generated by industrialised agriculture and fishing as well as from the exploitative wage and working conditions very often of women workers in the Free Trade Zones and manufacturing supply chains. At the same time, it is the Corporate giants that benefit from the mobile, often highly skilled, migrant labour as we see with Mexican and Central American labour in the corporate farms of the US; with African and Asian workers in the International Construction Corporations; Filipinos in the giant shipping corporations transporting goods globally; and migrant women being deployed globally to undertake care work and domestic work across the world.

Cases like the Bangladesh migrant contrucuction workers in Quatar, forced to work in slave like conditions and dying of exposure to the sun brought world attention to this reality of the commodifiction of migant workers and denial of their fundamental human rights.

But these violations of human rights and labour rights are widespread across the spectrum of TNC operations in Construction, Shipping and Farm work. Another major concern is the huge growth of the Corporate industry in the militarisation and externalisation of borders and of the Corporations such as the G4S (one of the largest corporate employers with operations in 120 countries) in the detention, and deportation of migrants and refugees.

In this context we propose for the attention of the IGWG that:

The Treaty needs to guarantee the primacy and superiority of the overall framework of human rights in relation to all dimensions of labour, including the various sectors of migrant labour in the global supply chains.

The Treaty must make provisions to address the impunity of Corporaitons in the global supply chains, including in the migrant sector.

The Treaty needs to assert the State’s responsibilty to take the private sector and corporations out of the governance of migration and refugee issues.

In the context of this Treaty, we see the protection of migrant labour rights as integral to and related to the Rights of affected people and communities by TNC operations.

These proposals are respectfully submitted for your consideration in the task of Building the Binding Treaty to guarentee the implementation and fulfillment of human rights and migrant rights in relation to the operations of Transnational Corporations.

Thank You.

Nonoi Hacbang

Transnational Migrant Platform Europe

Submitted at the OEIGWG UNHRC in the ECOSOC framework of the Transnational Institute

October 28th, 2016

Global Coalition on Migration Urges Stronger, Concrete Commitments to Protect the Human Rights of Migrants

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Members of the Global Coalition on Migration (GCM) including Transnational Migrant Platform (TMP) will participate in two upcoming press briefings of migrant organizations from around the globe in conjunction with the September 19 UN High Level Summit to address large movements of refugees and migrants.

Read here the complete MEDIA ADVISORY:

media-advisory-high-level-summit-12sept

For a time schedule of the UN High Level Summit:

gcm-un-hls-summit-calendar

Presentation for the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants, during the Round Table 2: “Addressing drivers of migration, particularly large movements, and highlighting the positive contributions of migrants”

input-hls_-round-table2-jb-sept2016