Thread: UN & Mexico gov. 1996 document

This is just part of a very long document.
A United Nation's document:



CERD/C/296/Add.1
30 September 1996

ENGLISH
Original: SPANISH


Eleventh periodic report of States parties due in 1994 : Mexico. 30/09/96.
CERD/C/296/Add.1. (State Party Report)

Convention Abbreviation: CERD
COMMITTEE ON THE ELIMINATION OF
RACIAL DISCRIMINATION

IV. MIGRATORY FLOWS AT THE SOUTHERN BORDER AND THE
PROTECTION AND DEFENCE OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF
CENTRAL AMERICAN MIGRANT WORKERS ENTERING MEXICO

56. The situation at the southern border is very different from that at the northern one. Although Mexico has older historical ties and more in common with Belize and Guatemala, efforts and machinery to protect the human rights of immigrants from the south have so far proved inadequate by comparison with those operating at the northern border.


57. Migration by Central American, Latin American and Asian nationals entering Mexico through its southern border zone or using Mexico as a means of reaching the United States of America cannot be dismissed simply as population movements. Nor can the problem be reduced to one of mere economic causes, for other, intermingling political and social factors are at work within it that have varied with time and circumstances, changing radically since the 1980s.


58. Migrants entering Mexico from the south have a variety of objectives. Some make the crossing to work temporarily in Mexico, as is the case of the Guatemalans harvesting coffee, sugar cane or bananas in the Soconusco region of Chiapas. Others come to settle in the region along the frontier with Belize and Guatemala, a further group migrate to Mexico City, and a large number use Mexico as a transit route to the United States. Since the 1980s, many have come for the sole purpose of surviving the violence of the social struggles and political climates that arose in their home countries in the late 1970s.


59. Central Americans crossing the Mexican border on their way north encounter a landscape of fear, uncertainty and, at times, violence, corruption and vulnerability - situations not unknown to the migrants taking work on the coffee plantations, sugar refineries or banana plantations, in the service sector or engaging in a variety of informal and vulnerable pursuits such as peddling and prostitution in the zone near the southern border.


60. The defencelessness of migrants without documents renders them prey to abuse by the authorities and to human rights violations. The same defencelessness often means that they will not report the violations they suffer even though there are diplomatic and non-governmental channels through which a complaint could be lodged against the authority supposedly responsible.


61. It is encouraging, however, to observe that efforts are being made through a variety of bodies, such as the consulates of Central American countries, to protect migrants, and that non-governmental organizations and the churches are also at work in the area.


62. The Mexican Government recognized in January 1995 that migration, as in many other countries, was a challenge on a large scale: greater than in the past and capable of growing in the future if it did not make preparations to anticipate, channel and cope efficiently with the phenomenon; it therefore embarked on a critical assessment and thorough review of its current policy so as to suit it to present-day conditions.


63. The effects of these migratory movements at the border began to make themselves felt in Mexico in the late 1970s, when the armed conflicts intensified. The most critical moment, however, came when huge groups of Guatemalan families and communities entered the country. Their motive, as non-combatants, for fleeing was the terror and persecution they had faced.


64. In parallel, but less explicitly, the behaviour of other migratory flows also changed substantially. From the viewpoint of labour availability, flows of migrant workers - particularly for farm work - increased and diversified. The creation of new sources of jobs in the border area encouraged this increase. Clearly, however, crises in the migrants home countries were decisive in swelling the numbers joining the migratory flows, temporary though these were.


65. Proximity to a region in conflict necessitated an attitude and policies defined in the light of their actual and potential effects. The Mexican Government therefore embarked on a policy that favoured the restoration of peace and the development of the countries in the region. It has acted as a promotor and mediator between the parties in peace processes, and made use of international cooperation directed specifically at development in its neighbours.

66. The new pattern of migration had a variety of effects on Mexican society. On the one hand, welfare arrangements to assist and protect the refugee population had to be set up, while government institutions designed and carried out specific policies that were strengthened and backed by international and non-governmental bodies.


67. In the circumstances the Mexican Government was also constrained to change the law, introducing a specific statute to afford appropriate protection for the refugee population. Faced with increasing streams of migrants entering the country without documents, it tightened controls, security and deportation measures and increased the penalties applicable to those trafficking in immigrants for profit.


68. In April 1995 the National Human Rights Commission released its study, Report on violations of immigrants human rights, conducted on the southern border, in which it made recommendations to the Ministries of the interior, foreign relations, labour and welfare, health, and agriculture, livestock and rural development, and to the Office of the Attorney-General, the Governments of the States concerned, their respective Government Procurators Offices and the State Human Rights Commissions.


69. As a follow-up to that study, the Commission has evaluated the action taken by these various authorities in response to its proposals so as to help put a stop to practices demeaning to foreigners entering Mexico over its border with Belize and Guatemala. The action taken includes the following:


(a) A human rights primer for migrants (annexed). To promote respect for the human rights of people entering the country over the southern border, the National Commission, in conjunction with the Ministry of the Interiors National Migration Institute, produced and released its Human Rights Primer for Migrants in May 1996. The Primer seeks to give foreigners pointers on their basic rights and how to defend them, emphasizing that anyone inside Mexico, whatever country they are from, and whether or not in possession of the statutory travel documents, has human rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the United Mexican States;


(b) The Beta Sur migrant protection group. The inauguration on 4 May 1996 of the Beta Sur migrant protection group, bringing together 25 public servants from three levels of government - Federal migration officials, Chiapas State police officers and members of the Tapachula and Pijijiapan municipal police forces - was an event of some importance. The group was created to protect the human rights, physical integrity and assets of national and foreign migrants passing through the region, irrespective of their migrant status;


(c) The persons without documents programme. To protect the human rights of people without documents discovered in Mexico, the National Commission has set up a permanent programme to deal with any massive influx of individuals without documents, checking and certifying that the individuals human rights are respected during the appropriate repatriation procedures. Between May 1995 and May 1996, this programme has helped to protect the rights of 3,473 individuals from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Brazil, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and Peru, India and Bangladesh, even when they had entered the country without the travel documents required by the legislation in force. Twenty-five working teams were set up, enabling National Commission staff to ensure that the national authorities treated the documentless migrants properly.



V. THE PROTECTION OF MEXICANS ABROAD, WHO FACE GROWING
RACISM AND XENOPHOBIA, PARTICULARLY AT THE
NORTHERN BORDER
70. One sector of the Mexican population particularly notable not only for their vulnerability but also for their impact on society and the economy are Mexican migrant workers. These, a tiny number in relation to the total population, wield entirely disproportionate political, economic and social influence. Their very particular circumstances, which on occasion are tantamount to complete defencelessness, and the authorities involved, make a meticulous and systematic examination of the associated problems indispensable.


71. Migration between Mexico and the United States is an historical phenomenon that has been going on for a century and a half. It has passed through a number of phases and economic cycles, taking on different features depending on economic, political, social and legal developments in the two countries.


72. Over the past three years, Mexican migration to the United States has aroused particular concern about respect for the human rights of migrant workers. This is the product of a number of factors that have combined as the migratory phenomenon has evolved.


73. Among the main features that have changed the outlook for Mexican migrants, one finds:


(a) Xenophobia and racial discrimination in some sectors of American society;


(b) The economic situation in the United States generally and California especially, with all that that implies, including rising unemployment;


(c) The impact on particular sectors of Mexican society of certain economic changes which, combined with the recession in the world economy and its effects at the national level, have affected the wages and employment situation of Mexican workers.


74. Apart from this, recent changes in United States policy on migration, with a series of proposals that, if acted upon, will affect the rights of migrant workers, contrast with the Mexican view of migration as a feature of the international labour market, where demand in the United States is as real as supply is in Mexico. Hence the vast majority of migrant workers continue to go to the United States, with or without documents, irrespective of whether their job expectations and prospects generally are improving or not.



75. It is relatively easy at present to stir up anti-migrant worker and anti-refugee racist and xenophobic sentiment in some sectors of United States society, in many cases blaming migrants and refugees for rising unemployment, tax imbalances, delinquency and epidemics - to cite just some examples.


76. It is true that relations between Mexico and the United States are based on mutual respect and are consistent with worldwide economic change. Many important points of convergence have been found. But it is no less true that no such range of agreement, allowing better protection and respect to be afforded to the human rights of Mexican migrants, has yet been found on the subject of international migratory flows.


77. Here it is important to point out that despite differences over the subject of migration there are more mechanisms nowadays permitting the Governments of Mexico and the United States to discuss and deal with the problems raised by migration between the two countries. The challenges of the present do, however, require these mechanisms to be strengthened, and new ways of organizing and invoking the authorities concerned to be found, so that migration can be handled fairly and properly.


78. The National Human Rights Commission has a programme on the human rights of migrant workers which seeks to detect and diagnose, in conjunction with the competent authorities, the main violations to which such workers are prey and press for action to root out such irregularities at both the northern and the southern borders.


79. As regards the northern border, a salient feature of the programme is a study currently in progress on violations of the human rights of Mexican women emigrating to the United States; the objective is to reveal the situation of such women and draw up suggestions aimed at the authorities involved in these human rights violations.


80. Similarly, the Commission has published a Second report on violations of the human rights of Mexican migrant workers travelling to the northern border, crossing the border and entering the southern border area of the United States. This was assembled from complaints received by the Commission and the human rights commissions of the Mexican States on the northern border, and from information supplied by non-governmental organizations - Mexican and American - concerned with the human rights of migrant workers, academic institutions, and the Mexican Ministries of Foreign Affairs and the Interior.


81. During the preparation of the Second report it was observed that the Mexican Government has made an effort to set up an infrastructure enabling its consular departments to offer better service to migrant workers going to the United States.


82. The primary objective of the Mexican consulates in the United States border area has been to devote more time and resources to dealing with cases brought to them by Mexican migrants. Consular involvement in watching over and protecting Mexican workers has been growing by the day, with encouraging results as regards the payment of compensation to Mexicans who have suffered abuse or violence at the hands of United States authorities.


83. One must nevertheless not lose sight of the fact that isolated trends in some parts of the United States towards an anti-migrant climate might become pervasive; the Mexican Government and its diplomatic and consular staff have thus had to work harder and better to afford still greater protection in the southern border region of the United States.


84. In keeping with its efforts to protect and defend the rights of migrant workers, Mexico chaired the United Nations working group that drafted the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, and was the first country to sign the Convention; the various departments of the Federal Government are now studying the possibility of its early ratification.


85. The Government has campaigned for the ratification of the Convention in a variety of international bodies, sponsoring resolutions in the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and its Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities urging other Governments to sign and ratify the Convention as soon as possible.


86. Mexico has also cosponsored resolutions on means of combating contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia, calling on the Commission on Human Rights to condemn displays of racism, discrimination and racist violence against migrant workers and on the Special Rapporteur on the topic to investigate the incidents related.


87. In view of the breadth and complexity of the issues and questions raised in the migrant workers convention, however, and the obviously complicated process that is likely to follow its entry into force, the Mexican Government announced at the fifty-second session of the Commission on Human Rights that, should the Convention not swiftly take effect and its very thorough provisions be fully observed, it would look for an immediate formula to concentrate attention on respect for migrants basic rights, calling for an institutional mechanism to draft minimum standards applicable to migrants in any country, regardless of their legal status, and thematic machinery to which to submit complaints that migrants basic rights had been violated.


88. Between May 1995 and May 1996, six events were held for migrants and bodies dedicated to their protection in the city of Tijuana, Baja California, under the National Human Rights Commissions training programme on the rights of migrants.


89. The National Commission, the National Indigenous Institute and six non-governmental organizations held a gathering entitled Los Distintos Rostros de la Migración (The Various Faces of Migration). They have also run five workshops with non-governmental organization leaders; the initial phase consisted of basic training in human rights and international instruments on the rights of migrants and their families.


http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/CERD.C.296.Add.1.En?Opendocument

©1996-2001
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Geneva, Switzerland

Good let's stop supporting the UN w/our tax dollars. That way we'll have more money to spend on illegal aliens.

The only good thing about this paper is that the UN is so irrelevant and totally worthless that almost everyone stopped paying attention to them decades ago. We need to get out of that worthless organization. Let them send other peoples troops off to these ridiculous places to be killed.