SIMN

Participation in the 6th Session of the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (CMW)

From May 23rd to the 27th, 2007, Dr. Antonio Salice represented the Scalabrini International Migration Network (SIMN) at the 6th Session of the CMW at the Palais Wilson of the United Nations in Geneva.

The CMW is the body of independent experts that monitors the implementation of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (1990) by its member States.

All member States are required to submit regular reports to the Committee on how the rights are being protected. Initially they must send a report one year after signing the Convention and then one every five years. The CMW will examine each report and address its concerns and recommendations to the member State in the form of “concluding observations”.

The CMW meets annually in Geneva. This year meeting was attended by the representatives of Sri Lanka, Mexico, Philippines, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Azerbaijan and by delegations of other member States and representatives of NGOs, among them the Center for Migration Studies of New York. At this sixth session, the Committee considered the initial report from Egypt.

The CMW held also a meeting with other member States to discuss the status of reporting, ways and means to promote the Convention and the proposals of a reform of the treaty.

An important item of the meeting was the promotion of the Convention among the “receiving countries” since, so far, all the member States are from “sending countries.”

The Committee noted the interest expressed by Italy to sign the Convention.