MIGRATORY REGULARIZATION NOW ¡ WITHOUT CONDITIONS!
May 31st, 2020
The health crisis due to Covid-19, that began on the first quarter of 2020, has marked a “before and after” in people´s lives around the world. A lot has been written and said about the pandemic and the multiple crises it has caused such as medical, economic, social and even civilizational. Nevertheless, it is clear that not even developed countries have been able to stop the pandemic´s devastating impacts, much worse Latin America and the Caribbean, that long before were facing dismantling and privatization of their health and education systems, a growing unemployment and low oil prices; all results of the aberrant capitalist system. The current health crisis is a result of preexisting crises and has worsened the negative impacts in poor sectors and much more in immigrants, refugees and displaced people that continue being, as indigenous people are too, the most invisible among the invisible.
We, the members of the Migrant, Refugees and Displaced People´s Network (MIREDES in Spanish), present in Guatemala, Ecuador, Chile, Brazil, Argentina and Switzerland, that held virtual meetings on May 16th and 31st of 2020 with the purpose exchanging information about the situation that migrants, refugees and displaced people are facing at those countries:
DENOUNCE
That border closures have condemned migrants and refugees to social, medical and alimentary isolation, impeding the return of families to their countries of origin and forcing them to use illegal border crossings, where criminal bands and human trafficking and smuggling proliferate.
That in the aforementioned countries, migrants, refugees and displaced people have been subject to a profound discrimination and stigmatization that has impeded their access to health systems, basic care services, medicines and Covid-19 tests.
That several migrants, refugees and displaced people, especially children, unaccompanied minors, pregnant women, and people with catastrophic diseases are suffering from hunger and malnutrition, which aggravates their already weakened immunological conditions and exposes them to a high risk of contagion, much worse if they have not been offered decent quarantine areas.
That vulnerable migrant population have been evicted from their precarious housings due to nonpayment of rent, without a minimal consideration from indolent landlords that have sent parents, head of households, children, and adolescents to the street. Many of them have stayed at bus or subway stations or simply at the street as indigents.
That migrant population that were part of the informal sector have lost everything they had, their livelihoods and the possibilities of saving their entrepreneurships with which they sustained their families and/or sent remittances to their countries of origin.
That domestic workers, migrant and refugee women in the majority of cases, have been fired from the places where they worked, in exploitative conditions and without any protection and biosafety supplies.
That migrant, refugee and displaced women, are victims of an increment of gender based violence and domestic violence, and have to face these situations in silence, isolated and without the possibility of denouncing their aggressor due to a lack of access to the justice system, or lack of resources to afford phone or internet costs. At the same time, this also brings misinformation about government services or emergency numbers.
That migrants, refugees and displaced people do not denounce these situations and violations of their rights, due to their irregular status at destination countries, to their fear of being deported or to avoid suffering extortion from the immigration police that threatens them in exchange for money.
For all these situations, families of migrants and refugees, women usually head of households, pregnant women with children, have decided to go back to their countries of origin without having the minimal conditions for their return, because their lives are at risk, they suffer from hunger or are exposed to contagion and do not have access to health care services.
DEMAND:
States to offer migratory regularization without conditions, for migrants and refugees that are at the countries of destination, contributing with their work, paying taxes and also contributing with their culture and social richness. The world and particularly developed countries have felt the absence of workers for agriculture, construction sector, care chains and other service sectors. Despite of that, they have revealed their hypocrisy asking this population to return while quarantine lasts.
States to avoid border closures and allow migrant people to return to their countries of origin or residence. Migrants and refugees are not the cause of the transmission of the virus, the opposite, upper class sectors that made tourism and returned from Europe were the cause of the massive contagion among the population.
States to stop the expulsion and deportation of Central American migrants from the United States of America and Mexico because they are blamed as the cause of the health crisis. The closure of borders stigmatizes even more to those who want to return and governments of their countries of origin are not doing anything to support them.
States to guarantee the right to health, to basic and specialized healthcare, access to medicines and a decent quarantine area for migrants and refugees to prevent an exponential risk of contagion for families in a precarious situation.
We exhort states to give attention to the demands of women involved in prostitution that also suffer from the pandemic´s consequences and do not have access to decent housing, food, medicines and health treatments. The health crisis has unveiled again the institutional violence, historical and structural racism that now is deepened due to Covid-19.
We exhort states to recognize and respond to the realities of migrant sexual dissents and the precarious life conditions amid the pandemic, to guarantee their inclusion and access to their social policies and to recognize their urgent medical needs.
We condemn the aggravation of violence and racism against migrants and refugees, especially indigenous and afro-descendant people, and demand states to sanction the media and all those actors that promote racism, xenophobia and discrimination against this population.
We demand states to include migrants and refugees in state´s aid related to the right to food, access to social programs and to include them in services that help them face the pandemic because they need resources to satisfy their emergent needs, the same as host communities do.
We exhort international cooperation to increase their investment for a regional and joint response, efficient and concerted, particularly for the countries that receive migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Africa and that the pandemic has hit them amid preexistent crises.
We call upon women organizations, NGO and trade unions, to defend the rights of migrant and refugee workers and also to give attention, prevent and guarantee the access to justice for cases of domestic violence, gender based violence, violence against children and adolescents that are isolated or along migration routes.
Finally, we demand states to remember the importance of civil society regarding humanitarian issues and also development, due to the proximity with immigrants and refugees and because it is the first to act and respond to their needs. Despite of it, we observe that not only migration is criminalized but also those who provide help during the current crisis.
MIREDES Internacional, red internacional afiliada a IMA
¡Migratory regularization now, without conditions!
Adhesions: miredes.internacional@gmail.com
Adherent members:
Individual persons
MIREDES ARGENTINA
MIREDES Brasil
MIREDES Chile
MIREDES Ecuador
MIREDES Guatemala
MIREDES México
MIREDES Suiza
Asociación Argentina para la Investigación en Historia de las Mujeres y Estudios de Género
Asociación Civil de Derechos Humanos Mujeres Unidas Migrantes y Refugiadas en Argentina, AMUMRA
Asociación Ciudadana por los Derechos Humanos, Argentina
Asociación Civil 18 de Diciembre Por el Migrante, Argentina
Asociación Civil de Residentes Bolivianos en la Matanza, Argentina
Asociación Cultural Argentino-Brasilera A turma Da Bahiana
Asociación de Ecuatorianos Residentes en Argentina, AERA
Asociación Movimiento Familiares y Migrantes, MFAM, Ecuador
Asociación Mujeres en Desarrollo, Argentina
Caravane Sans Frontières, Suiza
Carrera de Relaciones del Trabajo de la Universidad Nacional Arturo Jauretche, Argentina
Centro de Derechos Humanos y Ciudadanía de Migrantes y Refugiadxs Ezpeleta- Quilmes
Centro de Documentación en Derechos Humanos "Segundo Montes Mozo S.J." (CSMM) / Ecuador
Colectiva de Antropólogas Feministas, IIEGE-FEyL, UBA
Comité Permanente por la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos, CDH, Ecuador
Corporación de Espacios de Mujer Colombia
Coordinadora Nacional de Inmigrantes de Chile
Escuela de Feminismo Popular Nora Cortiñas
Federación Nacional de Trabajadoras/res del Hogar Remunerados/as del Perú
Frente de Migrantes Organizados Argentina
Fundación Crea Tu Espacio, Ecuador
Fundación Ecuatoriana Equidad, Ecuador
Fundación Paz y Esperanza, Ecuador
Ges Asociación Civil. Argentina
Grupo de Estudios sobre Migraciones, Familias y Políticas Públicas (MiFaPP)
Instituto Argentino para la Igualdad, Diversidad e Integración (IARPIDI), Argentina
Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani, Universidad de Buenos Aires Argentina
Instituto de Investigaciones de Estudios de Género, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires Argentina
Instituto Multidisciplinario de Estudios de Género y Mujeres de la Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Argentina
Movimiento Migrante Mesoamericano (MMM)
Migrant Collective, Portland, Oregon, USA
Organización Rumiñahui 9 de Enero, Ecuador
Programa Migración y Asilo del Instituto de Justicia y Derechos Humanos de la Universidad de Lanús, Argentina
Red de Defensoras del Ambiente y el Buen Vivir, Argentina
Red de Investigadores/as Argentinos/as sobre Migraciones Internacionales Contemporáneas, RED-IAMIC
Sindicato de Trabajadores/as de Casas Particulares La Pampa – Argentina
Sindicato de Empleadas de Casa de Familia San Juan – Argentina, SIN.DE.CAF
Sindicato de Trabajadoras Domésticas Colombia, SINTRASEDOM
Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores/as del Hogar del Perú, SINTRAHOGARP
Sindicato Nacional Unitario Interempresa de Trabajadoras y Trabajadores de Casa Particular Actividades Afines o Conexas, SINDUCAP, Chile.
Trabajadores Invisibles de Ginebra
Unión de Empleadas Domésticas Tierra del Fuego- Argentina
Ana Inés Barelli (CONICET/IIDyPCa/UNRN) Bariloche
Carolina Rosas, Investigadora del Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani, FCS, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina
Jaqueline Vassallo. Dra en Derecho y Ciencias Sociales- Universidad Nacional de Córdoba- CONICET
Mónica Tarducci, Docente Investigadora de la Universidad de Buenos Aires
Claudia Bani, Argentina