The
Working Group on Labour and Migration of Solidarity for Asian Peoples'
Advocacy (SAPA) issued the "Joint position on the perspectives &
strategies of Asian migrants on the global economic crisis" on 25
February 2009. Analysing the present global economic crisis and its
impact on migrant workers, the working group shows its stand to protect
the workers and other vulnerable sectors of the society.
The
Working Group on Labour and Migration of Solidarity for Asian Peoples'
Advocacy (SAPA) issued the "Joint position on the perspectives &
strategies of Asian migrants on the global economic crisis" on 25
February 2009. Analysing the present global economic crisis and its
impact on migrant workers, the working group shows its stand to protect
the workers and other vulnerable sectors of the society.
"This is a global crisis and it needs
global solutions. We are experiencing a downturn in global economic development,"
admits the pillars of the world economic and social order – the Organisation
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), World Bank (WB), International
Monetary Fund (IMF), World Trade Organisation (WTO), International Labour
Organisation (ILO) and the German Chancellor – in their February 2009 joint statement.
We, the labour and migration groups and
advocates in Asia, assert that this is a
comprehensive and multi-faceted social, economic, financial and environmental
crisis. "It is a systematic crisis, a crisis of the development model," as we
declared at the 2009 World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil.
This crisis is the latest eruption of the
compounded effects and devastation of the neoliberal development ideology
espoused by the "Washington Consensus", and systematically imposed since the
end of World War II by the Bretton Woods institutions (IMF, WB, WTO), the OECD,
global capitalists and multinational corporations. This will not be the last, or
the worst economic crisis, especially for the workers, migrants, women, and the
poor, marginalised and vulnerable peoples in Asia
and the world.
Indeed, the entire post-war period built
on the neoliberal development model is dramatically distinguished by a
progression of global crises, each one more widespread and devastating than the
ones before – the economic, food and debt crises in Asia and Latin America in
the 1970s-1980s; the economic meltdown in Asia and the subsequent currency crisis
in Latin America in the late 1990s; the worsening climate change crisis which
greatly accelerated in the post-war period due to the ever-more excessive,
destructive and unsustainable global development and consumption patterns; and
the current global crisis, which will be deep and lasting, and could be worse
than the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Neoliberal Paradigm at the Root of Exploitative Migration
There are over 250 million people today who are migrants – living,
working, raising families and building communities in places outside
their country of origin. Total migrants' remittance transfers to their
home communities are a staggering US$300 billion a year; more than
triple all international aid. These migrants will be directly and
disproportionately impacted by the global crisis. They will face a
deeply uncertain future.
