From 2 to 4 February 2011, will be held Su Goree Island (Senegal) World Migration a meeting to amend and adopt the World Charter of Migrants
Principles and visions
The Migrants’ World Charter is to be considered as a process to restitute to migrants their power of speech which is often confiscated. To allow migrant individuals to express their vision of the world based on their experiences and paths in life.
The aim is to elaborate on a collective basis, a Charter of principles to proclaim freedom of movement and the right of human beings to settle anywhere on our planet. This process is animated exclusively by migrants on an individual basis, whatever their organisational, cultural, ethnic or religious belonging, in order to confront their visions of the world in the context of a joint and participative representation on a planetary scale.
This project for a Charter was developed around a proposal made by a « sans papiers » migrant during a struggle undertaken by 120 families together with their children in Marseille in the year 2006. Their aim was to obtain residence permits in France. One of the results of this collective experience was that a group, issued from this struggle, wrote a Charter. It was the first time such an idea was publicly exposed and it consisted in having the migrants themselves write a Charter of principles which gave them at the same time the opportunity to express their vision of citizenship starting from the conditions which governmental policies imposed on their lives.
Historical context :
– 2006-2008: a phase of collective writing
This Charter was presented at the 2° World Social Forum for Migration, June 2006 at Rivas Madrid (Spain) and at the 1° World Migrant Summit for Latin-American Migrants in Morelia, Mexico, may 2007.
But shortly afterwards we realised that this first version was more of a Charter of strong claims and demands rather than a Charter of principles similar to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or to the Charter of Human Responsabilities.
– 2008-2010 ; an organisational phase
The enthusiasm which was expressed in all meetings, allowed us to form a group at an international level which opened the door to other proposals coming from Africa, Asia and Latin America. With time this migrant group became a consolidated reality and gave way to an International Coordination for a Migrants World Charter.
In the course of time, this coordination of migrants has been consolidated and the birth of 4 continental coordinations has been rendered possible : the European coordination, African, Asian and Latin American. The vocation of these coordinations is to animate and stimulate the process of collective writing and to set up various local assemblies which gave the possibility to migrants to discuss and exchange ideas.
On the basis of these 4 Charter propositions, a working group from the international coordination elaborated a synthesis which is in the process of dissemination since the month of September 2010 in all local assemblies in order to relaunch the discussion on a world scale in preparation of the final discussion in February 2011.
Why a Charter and what for?
Many ask what is the aim of such a Charter ? Is it not just another of many projects ? Many say there are already a number of conventions and documents around the world worth of note, which not only analysed the problem of migrant movements and to reflect with precision on the situation and the difficulties in which migrants find themselves and in addition identified the rights which must be given to these milions of migrant women and men around the world.
But it is not for us a question of creating with this project simply another project. The project of writing on a collective basis the World Charter of migrants on a planetary level is innovative in itself since of all existing documents none has been written by migrants themselves.
With this approach we accept a great challenge which consists in allowing all those women and men who have known various forms of displacement, who are under constraint and duress for economic reasons or for other personal choices, to develop and set up a Charter of principles based on their lives and their experiences. A Charter to establish a certain number of fundamental rights :
– First of all the freedom of movement on our planet and the right to settle where one wishes to do so, just as the rights which are granted to the freedom of movement for merchandise and capitals.
– The second one is equal rights between migrants and national citizens in all areas in the countries of immigration.
– The right to exercise full citizenship based on the principle of residence and not on that of nationality.
It is evident how through this project migrants wish to put on the agenda the issue of freedom of movement and settlement for everybody all over the world.
How can we reach that goal ?
It is definitely true that with this project we are in the process of building new practices which break away from the custom to delegate and which prompt the imaginative faculties and creative capacity of each individual.
Many meeting were held in many different places in order to present the project and at the same time to arouse interest to write proposals for charters. Local and continental assemblies are scheduled in order to emend the final text of the Charter and to designate the migrants who will participate at the World Assembly of Migrants in Gorée the 3rd and 4th of February 2011.
Gorée 2011 : the return to Humanity
The Charter must represent the vision of all migrants and in order to do this it is indispensable to create one unique Charter which must be the synthesis of the 4 continental charters which we already dispose of.
The coordinators of the charter have therefore chosen to organise a World Assembly of Migrants on the island of Gorée (Senegal) a few days before the Worl Social Forum (3rd and 4th of February 2011) in order to adopt, after a two day discussion which will bring together migrants from all over the world, the final Charter. This Charter will then be disseminated at a world level and the first occasion being the World Social Forum.
The island of Gorée is a symbolic place, laden with history. This place where all humanity was toren away from the people :they were chained and imprisoned in the hold of ships and sent as slaves towards America or in other lands. It seems therefore the most appropriate place to organise a return towards humanity once confiscated.
This meeting of hundreds of migrants from the world over, who come from world local assemblies, and probably among them descendants of slaves but also descendants of slave drivers, has the aim to adopt together the world charter of migrants but also to reflect on the perspectives which the participants wish to give to this process. Reflect also on how to extend this process through mecanisms and working protocols which would allow the promotion of the charter and in consequence the participation of the migrants to the growth of a new plural, solidarious and responsible world.
Instruments
The support of the fondation « Charles Léopold Mayer pour le progrès de l’homme (www.fph.ch) » has allowed the coordinators of the Charter to develop comunication instruments in order to popularize the project of the charter through a web site : www.cmmigrants.org et www.cmmigrants.org/goree and also to set up an organisation committee for all logistics in regard to the World Assembly of Migrants.