WASHINGTON: Wealthy nations that benefit from migrant labour must ratify a global treaty designed to protect those workers and their families, which to date has been confirmed only by labour-sending countries, advocates for migrants urged on Thursday.

“More must be done to ensure the respect of the human rights of migrant workers and their families — be they regular or irregular, documented or undocumented,” said United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in his message issued for International Migrants Day, Dec 18.

“That is why I call on states to become parties to the International Convention on the Protection of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families,” Annan added.

His appeal was echoed by the US National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR), as well as the British-based Anti- Slavery International, which called on their governments to ratify the 1990 treaty.

The NNIRR stressed the convention is more necessary than ever before. “With the continued scapegoating and intensified law enforcement against immigrants in the US war on terrorism,” it said, “we have continued to witness the devastating effects of fear, racism and xenophobia on our immigrant and refugee communities, all in the name of national security”.

In the last year, it added, “the criminalization of immigrants has deepened as the US government has entrusted immigration enforcement to the Department of Homeland Security, an agency that leaves little chance for equal protection or due process of immigrants, at a time when detention and deportation have become leading strategies in the defence of national security”.

The United Nations estimates that about three percent of the world’s population is currently living outside their country of origin. While many of these are refugees searching for safety from violence, persecution or, in some cases, natural disaster, most are seeking better economic opportunities for themselves and their families.

The current net annual flow of migrants is 2.3 million, with the largest net senders now and for the foreseeable future including China, Mexico, India, the Philippines and Indonesia. The biggest net gainers over the next half-century are projected to be the United States, Germany, Canada, Britain and Australia.

According to UN figures, some 60 per cent of global migrants live in more developed countries, and almost one out of 10 people living in more developed regions is a migrant. The ratio of migrants in developing countries is only one in 70.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.