FIVE leaders of foreign trade-union and human-rights groups who were supposed to attend the preparatory meetings last week for the parallel civil-society meetings of the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GMFD) were denied entry by the Bureau of Immigration, organizers of the forum said.

Trade unionists from South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and two others from Latin American countries were denied entry to Manila last week when they arrived to attend the preparatory meeting of the People’s Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights held on July 11 and 12 at the International Labor Organization (ILO) office in Makati City.

Ambet Yuson, regional director for Building and Wood Workers International, has deplored the immigration agency’s treatment of their colleagues, saying its action only reflects the policy of governments participating in the GMFD not to welcome concerns to be raised by civil society on the rampant human-rights abuses committed against migrant workers.

Yuson warned that more human-rights activists and trade unionists from Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia who would be attending the people’s forum may also be stopped from entering the Philippines.

He, however, did not identify the five leaders for security reasons.

At least 1,000 leaders from global trade unions, migrants-groups and human-rights organizations will gather in Manila for the People’s Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights forum to be held from October 22 to 30 to call on governments to address mass deportation, detention and other forms of human-rights abuses against migrant workers mostly coming from poor countries such as the Philippines.

He said the people’s forum in October will gather some 200 leaders from the International Trade Union Confederations, the biggest world federation of trade unions with 15 million members coming from 135 countries.

The people’s forum seeks to raise the issue of the repressive policies of developed states against foreign migrant workers coming from poor Asian countries such as the Philippines, as well as those from Africa and Latin America.

The group has identified governments with repressive rules on foreign migrants. These include Malaysia, South Korea and Singapore, as well as European countries like Spain, France and Italy.

The meeting of more than 1,000 civil-society groups seeks to come up with resolutions that will counter the results of the United Nations member-states’ Global Forum on Migration and Development to be held from October 27 to 30 this year.

“Since the Global Forum on Migration and Development is a nonbinding meeting, it cannot resolve pressing issues that confront migrant workers in many countries who face rights abuses,” said Yuson in a press briefing over the weekend at the ILO office in Makati.

African human-rights advocate Mamadou Goita said various rights groups from Africa will also raise concerns on the harsh treatment of African migrant workers mostly coming from Mali, Morocco, Cameroon and Togo in European countries.

He said France is deporting an average of 45 migrant workers from Mali every day to ease its crowded detention centers. Besides France, countries like Spain and Italy have also been implementing tougher measures on migrant workers from African countries.

The people’s forum, said Goita, aims to raise awareness on the difficult conditions being faced by migrant workers, especially the undocumented ones.

He lamented: “Migration has become a security issue for many countries in Europe, [and this] results in the curtailment of the rights of many people from poor countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.”

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