Social Justice in an Open World: The Role of the United Nations
Third meeting of the Forum International Migrants and Development Theme 1: The current situation of international migrants Topic 7: Addressing the public perceptions of international migration and international migrants International migration is a subject that lends itself to speculation and conjecture, in part because the various types of movements across borders are notoriously difficult to measure. There are tourists, students, economic migrants and asylum-seekers. Some tourists and students are actually job-seekers. The distinction between migrant workers and asylum-seekers has become increasingly blurred. Among migrant workers there are those intending to stay abroad for a short time and those planning to settle in the host country. It is only in some of the developed countries that reasonably accurate data are available at least on the entry of non-nationals and on work permits or equivalent documents granted to foreigners. The most recent United Nations estimate puts the number of individuals residing for more than a year in a country other than their place of birth at 175 million. The number of illegal or undocumented immigrants is unknown, but there are believed to be several million living in North America and Western Europe alone. There are no reliable statistics on short-term migration, which usually involves working in a foreign country for a few months, but this practice is apparently becoming more prevalent and, again, the number probably comes to several million. In general, the return of migrants to their countries of origin is not properly measured. There are some 16 million people currently recognized as refugees by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNWRA), though this group is, in principle, included in the aforementioned overall estimate of 175 million. There are also internally displaced persons-presently numbering between 15 million and 20 million-who are differentiated from asylum-seekers only by their legal status and who, in terms of vulnerability and hardship, are generally in a worse situation than most of the international migrants. A common but apparently erroneous belief is that international migration is exclusively oriented in a South-North direction. While 60 per cent of the estimated 175 million people currently residing outside their native lands are in developed countries, a full 40 per cent are in developing countries. The heterogeneity of international migrants is perhaps not sufficiently recognized. At one end of the spectrum is the small but growing minority of people who are sought by many and often competing countries for their skills and talents in a variety of economic and social fields ranging from computer science and health to sports and entertainment. An immigrant in this category is given all the necessary