Current Information on the Condition of Migrants Worldwide
The World Migration Report produced by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), an office of the United Nations, updated to November 2023, noted that in 2022 there were 281 million migrants in the world and that this number is growing. It cites that the number of international migrants represented 2.3 per cent of the global population in 1980 and 40 years later in 2020 represents 3.5 per cent of the global population.
The UN defines a migrant as "any person who is moving or has moved across an international border or within a State away from his/her habitual place of residence, regardless of the person's legal status." It cites the main reasons for migration as "search of work or economic opportunity, to join family, or to study. Others move to escape conflict, persecution or large-scale human rights violations."
It is noted that at the end of 2022, "an estimated total of 71.1 million people remained displaced within the borders of their own country -- 62.5 million as a result of conflict and violence and 8.7 million as a result of disasters."
The IOM states that in 2022, 48 per cent of migrants were women and girls. A further 13 per cent were children under the age of 18. Youth between the ages of 18 and 24 represented 11 per cent of global migrants.
It reports that in 2019, 167 million migrants were workers, representing five per cent of the total number of workers globally, and comprised 62 per cent of all migrants that year. It is also noted that in 2022, international migrant workers remitted to their homelands, the majority low and middle income countries, a total of U.S. $647 billion, an increase of eight per cent compared to 2021, and more than Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) or Official Development Assistance (ODA) to these countries.
Regarding refugees and asylum seekers, the IOM notes, by mid 2023 there were an estimated total of 36.4 million refugees and 6.1 million asylum seekers worldwide and that in the first half of 2023, only three per cent or 59,500 refugees were resettled by the receiving countries.
The IOM notes that a significant portion of international migration is "irregular" as people seek to escape desperate circumstances and conditions and that, between 2014 and 2023, close to 60,000 people lost their lives in transit. Additionally, the IOM's Missing Migrants Project notes that tens of thousands of migrants are killed on the job every year as a result of doing "hazardous jobs in industries such as construction, manufacturing, mining and agriculture" as well as working in the informal economy where the risks are even greater. The IOM notes that migrant deaths on the job are very difficult to quantify and it is very likely that many more migrant workers are killed working overseas than is reported.
In June 26, 2023, Felipe González Morales, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, informed the Human Rights Council that "many undocumented migrants continue to struggle due to the lack of regular migration status: they live and work in critical circumstances and may be disproportionately subjected to discrimination, abuse, exploitation and marginalization. The lack of a regular status often prevents them from reporting violations for fear of deportation." He urged members of the UN to regularize the status of migrants so as to "improve migrants' access to social protection, health care, decent work, education, adequate living conditions and family reunification -- empowering migrants to lead more secure and dignified lives." "I urge governments to end the criminalization of irregular migrants and promote solidarity and change the narrative on migration and combat xenophobia, racism and discrimination," González stressed.
This article was published in
Volume 53 Number 32 - December 2023
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2023/Articles/MS53325.HTM
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