Making Migration Work for All Must Be Priority of Global Compact for Migration

15 January 2018 NEW YORK – Making migration work for all must be our overarching priority for the Global Compact for Migration on January 11.

This was the message underscored by Ambassador Teodoro Locsin Jr., Permanent Representative of the Philippines to the United Nations in New York, at the briefing held today by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on his report for the Global Compact for Migration.

Affirming the country’s commitment to the Global Compact, Ambassador Locsin said that the Philippines will “ensure that we arrive at a Global Compact that protects and promotes the rights of migrants” and “helps migrants fulfil their economic and social potential for the benefit of the countries and societies that take them in.”

He added, “If host countries do not believe that migrants make any significant contribution to their well-being and progress, to the enrichment of their societies as well as the fulfillment of their claimed humanity, we might arrive at the same conclusion and leave it at that, but we leave also the compelling sense of our common humanity at the door, and in shutting it behind us we are much diminished in our own humanity.”

Negotiations on the Global Compact will begin on February 20. It is expected to be adopted by governments at a high level conference in Morocco in December 2018.  END

For more information, visit www.newyorkpm.dfa.gov.ph/ www.un.int/philippines.