COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF MIGRANT WORKERS CONCLUDES EIGHTEENTH SESSION

The Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families today concluded its eighteenth session after adopting its concluding observations and recommendations on the second periodic reports of Colombia, Bolivia and Azerbaijan.

The Committee’s concluding observations and recommendations on those reports will be available on its webpage as of Monday, 29 April.

The eighteenth session was opened with an address by Simon Walker, Chief of the Civil, Political, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Section, Human Rights Treaties Division, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. In his address, Mr. Walker updated the Committee on events relevant to its work, including activities undertaken for United Nations International Migrants Day, and spoke about how anticipated budgetary cuts would affect the Committee’s work.

During the session the Committee held a Day of General Debate on the subject of statistics. Opening the debate moderator Craig Mokhiber, Chief of the Development and Economic and Social Issues Brand, Research and Right to Development Division of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the field of migration was often characterized as one in which “the most amount of policy was made on the least amount of data”. Ten experts from Governments, academia, civil society and United Nations and international organizations addressed the Committee on three topics: how migration statistics related to government policy and challenges associated with the development of migration statistics; inter-state cooperation and collaboration with non-governmental actors on migration statistics; and how to compile statistics for ‘hidden’ or ‘hard-to-reach’ populations of irregular migrants, and issues of data protection and confidentiality.

Other work undertaken this session included discussions about methods of work, reinforcing the treaty bodies, and drafting of a new General Comment.

The nineteenth session of the Committee will be held from 9 to 13 September 2013 at the Palais Wilson in Geneva when the Committee will consider the reports of Burkina Faso and Morocco.


For use of the information media; not an official record

CMW13/007E