Planning for Mass Migration:
By QUINCY PARKER -
Nassau, Bahamas:

The Bahamas continues to be among the main receiving countries for intra-Caribbean migration, according to the International Organization for Migration, and governments and other agencies in the region acknowledge the need for contingency plans for mass migration and refugee emergencies.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHCR) will host a four-day seminar on the Cayman Islands beginning on November 5 on these and other migration issues in the Caribbean.

Government officials from 21 Caribbean countries, along with representatives of observer governments and regional institutions, including CARICOM, the Pan American Health Organization, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Organization of American States, the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the University of the West Indies will participate.

An IOM press release gave details of the agenda for the seminar, at which "participants will discuss contingency planning for mass migration and refugee emergencies; responses to the diverse challenges of human trafficking and ways to strengthen regional integration as well as legal frameworks to better respond to migratory flows and to protect migrants and refugees."

"The Caribbean region is characterized by a very fluid internal movement of persons and by significant transit movement of non-Caribbean migrants," the IOM said.

"Lack of economic opportunities in many areas, coupled with historical patterns of movement and in some cases, human rights abuses and disasters - man made or natural - are the main drivers influencing migration from and within the Caribbean."

The organization noted that the region also has one of the highest emigration rates with Caribbean migrants mostly going to the United States. In the 2000 US Census, they totalled nearly 2.9 million or 9.6 per cent of the foreign-born population with inflows into the US continuing to be significant.

The IOM estimates that intra-regional movements are estimated at 10 per cent of overall migration.

"Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Guyana and Jamaica are the main source countries for other Caribbean destinations, while The Bahamas, the British and US Virgin Islands, and the Turks and Caicos are the main receiving countries and territories."

In a joint statement issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the June 2007 Conference on the Caribbean, key issues confronting policy makers in the 21st century are: regional cooperation on immigration, national security, trafficking in persons, reintegration of deportees, disaster preparedness, the spread of HIV/AIDS, and individual rights.

The IOM/UNHCR Regional Seminar seeks, according to IOM, to intensify dialogue and cooperation on these issues and to strengthen Caribbean capacities to manage mixed migratory flows within a human rights framework to maximize the positive effects of migration.

Supported by the US State Department Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM), the gathering is a follow-up to IOM/UNHCR Joint Regional Seminars held in Barbados in 2003, The Bahamas in 2004 and Trinidad and Tobago in 2005, as well a 2006 IOM Regional Seminar in Curaçao.

3 November 2007