Activists downplay ASEM migration initiative
by JEREMAIAH M. OPINIANO

MANDALUYONG CITY-- MANDALUYONG CITY-- INTER-REGIONAL cooperation through the Asia-Europe Meeting is now a decade old, but a regional advocacy network for migrant workers thinks nothing much will come out of ASEM regarding international migration.

Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA) regional coordinator William Gois told ASEM member-countries' ministries of labor that ASEM has yet to understand international migration issues fully beyond controlling borders and curtailing illegal immigration.

Migrants' rights are not yet integrated, Gois said at an forum mid-May sponsored by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Philippines (the strategic partner of the OFW Journalism Consortium).

Gois' comment comes at a time when labor ministers of ASEM member-countries will meet for the first time this September in Berlin, Germany to discuss varied employment issues and the social dimensions of globalization.

The meeting also comes at a time when United States government officials are at odds on what to do with the continuing flow of productive non-Americans--mostly Asians--“making it” in the highly-capitalized society.

After Berlin, ASEM heads of state will meet for the Sixth ASEM Summit on September 10-11 in Helsinki, Finland to tackle varied socio-economic issues, including the management of migratory flows between Asia and Europe.

Migration discussions have been there for some time, says Gois, but he has yet to see “a genuine interdependence between migration, growth, and development through ASEM.”

“Migrant workers are not even looked at with human dignity in ASEM, so I think nothing much will come out of it,” Gois said during the two-day forum “Substantiating the ASEM Dialogue on Social and Employment Issues.”

‘Informal’ dialogue
ASEM (says the website www.aseminfoboard.org) was created in 1996 as “an informal process of dialogue and cooperation” between states in the European Union and Asia, the latter mostly comprising states in Southeast Asia.

Europe has 25 member-states in ASEM, while the Asian side, says Gois, is actually “Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) plus 3.” The three refers to China, Japan, and South Korea.

Merliza Makinano of the Philippines's Department of Labor and Employment says that given the “informal, non-binding” format of ASEM, “the process [of inter-regional dialogue] has remained at an information-sharing level, and not into a substantive cooperation.”

Scholars that reviewed the ASEM process, Makinano added, have noted ASEM's “lack of visibility in the general public.” This process includes ASEM's biennial summits, and ministerial and working-group meetings. Among these working group meetings is the management of migratory flows.

ASEM's fourth meeting on the management of migratory flows last December 2005 in Bali, Indonesia saw member-countries reached major agreements on biometric technology for document security, immigration-related information sharing, cooperation to enhance border control management, cooperation to facilitate the management of legal migration, and cooperation with regard to “the problems of those illegally present.”

These agreements were consistent with the first ones initially agreed upon when ASEM convened a Ministerial Conference on Cooperation for the Management of Migratory Flows in Lanzarote Island, Spain.

Among the agreements in Lanzarote were on the security of travel documents, fighting of document forgery, and setting up networks of immigration and consular liaison officers.

ASEM's activities have three main pillars--political, economic, and cultural/intellectual. The management of migratory flows falls under the political pillar, with human rights, protection of children, and the impact of globalization.

Related to managing migration flows is the fight against terrorism, says the ASEM website www.aseminfoboard.org.

ASEM on migration
EVEN as ASEM's labor ministers will meet in Germany and later in Helsinki, recognizing international migration in ASEM beyond themes such as border control and curtailing irregular migrants has “still a long way to go,” says Gois.

If border control and irregular migration are how ASEM member-states look at international migration, Gois said there is a lot of awareness-raising needed “for ASEM to look at a broader picture.”

There are 56.1 million migrants in Europe, according to the Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM), and foreign workers comprise over-5 percent of the labor force in eight European countries.

At least 5 million of Europe's 56.1 million migrants (in 2000) are irregular migrants, and some 500,000 undocumented migrants (including Asians) arrive in Europe each year, adds GCIM.

But Europe's rising elderly population sees its citizens refusing semi-skilled jobs, says William Hyde of the International Organization for Migration, “and migrants provide that contribution to these host countries.”

Suggestions
ADMINISTRATOR Rosalinda Baldoz of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) said ASEM can be a forum to discuss “jointly-managed migration.”

ASEM member-states, Baldoz added, can state in specific terms what areas where member-countries can work together, such as education and skills training for migrant workers from Asia that Europe will fund, regularizing undocumented Asian migrants in Europe, and information sharing on migration management.

For other member-states, ASEM can be a route for labor migration, says Indonesia's Endang Sulistyaningsih.

A deputy director of her country's Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration, Sulistyaningsih said Indonesia can make ASEM an opportunity to promote Indonesian workers, such as seafarers, to take up skilled professions.

ASEM, adds Sulistyaningsih, discusses the mutual recognition of skills since Asian workers' educational and work qualifications are not recognized in Western countries. This was what APEC did for engineers in APEC's member-states so that they are allowed to work in these states, Sulistyaningsih explained.

But Gois advised migrant-sending states to refrain from competing with each other with regard to labor migration, and instead “should put their act together in negotiating through ASEM.”

One angle for negotiation is recognizing international treaties related to migrant workers.

Makinano reported that only a few ASEM member-states have ratified Conventions 97 (Migration for Employment, 1949) and 143 (Migrant Workers, 1975) of the International Labour Office (ILO), and the United Nations' International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families. (with reports from JOYCE ANNE B. ROBIÑO, trainee)

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