Forum of the NGO Committee on the Status of Women, Geneva: “Women and Global Migration: Root Causes and Innovative Solutions”

Ms. Simone Ovart,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is a pleasure to be with you today for the opening of today’s forum to explore challenges and solutions around women and migration. Let me thank Zonta International and the Committee on the Status of Women (CSW) for organizing this important and timely event.

Allow me to make three brief observations to frame your discussions today.

First, we should not be defensive when speaking about migration.

Migration is an essential part of human existence, a fact of life, and, importantly, a positive phenomenon.

Migration powers economic growth, reduces inequalities, connects diverse societies and helps us balance the demographic cycle of population growth and decline.

Migration is as old as humanity itself. People have forever been on the move – some in search of a better life, others fleeing prosecution, violence or natural disasters.

It’s only through space that we can read time – without people on the move, there would be a lot less history than we have today.

So let us be clear: migration is not the threat that populists would have you believe. The real threat is xenophobia, buttressed by a language that is loaded, imprecise and biased.

Which brings me to my second point: we should be precise and fact-based when speaking about migration.

Refugees, economic migrants, displaced persons: ours is a world of “bureaucratic categories” that carry life-or-death implications, and we have become accustomed to making fine and frequently unsustainable distinctions.

As a result, many migrants are stigmatized, trapped in unbearable legal limbo and often forced into the shadows of illegality.

Women and children are most exposed to suffer the consequences of the international community’s failure to agree on meaningful collective action to manage global migration flows. Indeed, I think that the unique value of today’s forum is precisely in elaborating more clearly how the specific challenges of women migrants need to feature front and centre in global migration policies.

In line with Sustainable Development Goal 5, this should not be viewed through the lens of victimhood but through the lens of empowerment. Because what I said about the economic benefits of migration is especially true for women – just consider that women have both higher labour participation rates and remit home a higher percentage of their earnings.

Which is why my third and final point is that your contribution and recommendations are vital and timely.

With the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration as well as the Global Compact for Refugees – whose ‘zero drafts’ are now on the table – we have an opportunity to fashion a truly global response to migration. And I certainly hope that we do. Because we are facing the possibility of massive numbers of people on the move in the not too distant future and we need to be much better prepared.

Geneva will play a critical role in this collective endeavour – and not just because two critical actors – the IOM and UNHCR – are headquartered here. It is the broader ecosystem in which they can incubate and execute ideas – the diversity of voices from governments, civil society, academia, and the private sector, many of which are here today – that makes Geneva such a unique environment to help create a world safe for migration.

I wish you fruitful discussions. Thank you.