Like the first rain
showers after a long drought, the adoption of the Bangkok Declaration on Irregular
Migration is a welcome change. Adopted by the ministers and representatives of 18
governments of East, Southeast and South Asia participating in the International Symposium
on Migration "Towards Regional Cooperation on Irregular/Undocumented Migration"
held in Bangkok on 21-23 April 1999, the initiative is a significant move in addressing
migration as a regional issue. Although focused on the irregular flow of migrants, the
regional approach will inevitably be applied in the consideration of migration in general.
In a way, the crisis has amply demonstrated the inadequacies of
traditional approaches to irregular migration. Receiving countries found to their dismay
that despite border controls, deportations and more punitive sanctions against immigration
violations, irregular migrants kept coming. For their part, information campaigns and
other preventive measures launched by countries of origin did not seem to deter migrants
from taking a chance with illegal recruiters and their ilk. The piecemeal, uncoordinated
and ineffective approaches to irregular migration by governments contrast markedly with
the highly coordinated activities of those promoting irregular migration.
It is not only the scale of irregular migration that is disturbing but
its changed nature and operation as well. Irregular migration has become transnational,
reaping profits for the perpetrators while victimizing countless migrants and their
families. Some of the activities of agents and organizations involved in irregular
migration border on trafficking (which is also on the increase), with serious implications
particularly for women. Widespread irregular migration has also complicated the screening
of refugees, instigating more restrictive measures in the granting of asylum, with dire
consequences for bona fide refugees.
Neither the emergence of regional and sub-regional organizations nor
increasing economic integration has persuaded countries of origin, transit countries and
destination countries to examine the problem and its resolution as a concern that cuts
across national boundaries. Obstacles to a regional approach have been the different
migration policies pursued by the various countries, the sensitivity of the issue, the
fear of compromise in an area which has become the last bastion of national sovereignty,
and the avoidance to reach agreements which might limit the flexibility that migration
offers to labor markets.
However, the crisis has laid bare the commonality of the issue and the ineffectiveness
of isolated policies. The discussion cannot be limited to irregular migration, since
irregular migration is only the other side of the same coin. Irregular migrants are not
people with a peculiar propensity for irregular practices, but people who resort to or
become victims of irregularities because of constraints. The Bangkok Declaration is a
promising beginning. However, declarations are fairly easy to adopt, since they imply
little commitment. It is hard to predict whether countries will proceed in that direction.
The choice should be clear by now in light of what is at stake: a commitment to a regional
dialogue and coordination would spell the difference between orderly migration or
migration with irregularities and abuses.
