ICMC Joins Colombia Gathering of Global Church Networks Focused on Refugees and Migration (7 November 2024, Colombia)

This article provides an overview of ICMC and the FOWLS Project’s participation in two international meetings of Church and Catholic-inspired organizations: the General Assembly of the Red CLAMOR Network and the First MigraRed International Meeting on Migration and Asylum.

ICMC Joins Colombia Gathering of Global Church Networks Focused on Refugees and Migration

By Rachel Westerby ǀ November 6, 2024 

Ahead of the 110th Vatican World Day of Migrants and Refugees, celebrated on Sunday 29 September, ICMC joined two international meetings of Church and Catholic-inspired organizations, held in Bogotá, Colombia.

On 24-28 September 2024, ICMC joined Church and Catholic-inspired organizations from around the world in Bogotá, Colombia, for two international meetings of Church networks focused on refugees and migration, in the Latin America and Caribbean region and worldwide.

The 7^th General Assembly of the Latin American and Caribbean Ecclesial Network on Migration, Displacement, Refuge and Human Trafficking (Red CLAMOR) took place on 24-26 September, followed by the first edition of the MigraRed international meeting on migration and asylum, held on 27-28 September. The joint programme culminated with a celebration of the 110^th Vatican World Day of Migrants and Refugees (WDMR) at the Cathedral of Bogotá on Sunday 29 September, enabling delegates of both gatherings to participate in this annual event that calls on Catholics around the world to remember those displaced by conflict and persecution.

ICMC was represented in Bogotá by Mr. Ignacio Alonso Alasino, Project Manager of the network of Catholic-inspired organizations around the world, coordinated by ICMC, and known as the “The Future of Work – Labour after Laudato si’” (FOWLS) Project. The FOWLS Project proposes a “Care is Work, Work is Care” approach, highlighting work as the core of a transformation to respond to Pope Francis’ call to “care for our common home”.

An Enduring and Worsening Crisis: Migration in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2024

In 2024, the Latin America and Caribbean region continues to experience a severe and enduring migratory crisis. More than 41 million Latin Americans live outside their country of origin, including 7.8 million Venezuelans, 6.6 million of whom live in other countries in the Latin America and Caribbean region. The past year has seen significant increases in emigration from Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, while flows of people displaced from Haiti and Cuba have become permanent features of the region’s migration landscape.

Most people on the move in the region are aiming to reach the United States, with flows from Central America (Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala) and Mexico continuing to be the largest on the continent. ‘Extra-continental’ migrants are also arriving into countries across in the region to attempt land journeys to the U.S.,  including significant numbers from African countries including Angola, Mauritania, Senegal, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Ghana, and smaller numbers from as far afield as China and India.

In 2024, the situation of migrants in the region continues to be characterized by multidimensional violence, a lack of access to legal status, basic rights, and services, and widespread social exclusion. The increasing stigmatization of migrants in mainstream political discourse is coupled with the hardening of State policies, including the militarization and closure of borders, an increased focus on deportation measures, and a lack of opportunities for migrants to regularize their status and successfully integrate.

Restrictive policies have led people on the move to travel via increasingly dangerous routes, most notably via the Darién Gap, the jungle region between Colombia and Panama. Just over 520,000 migrants transited this highly dangerous region in 2023, while a further 187,000 did so in the first half of 2024. Migrants moving on this route are highly vulnerable both in terms of their individual status, such as the 160,000 children who crossed in the first six months of 2024, and their vulnerability to the risks of trafficking and other violence and exploitation by organized criminal gangs operating across this area.

Other, dangerous migration routes are emerging from countries for which forced displacement has recently spiked, as an alternative to travelling through the Darién. Migrants from Ecuador, for example, are increasingly choosing to travel by boat to El Salvador, a hazardous journey attempted by an average of 11,000 people each month in 2024. Unsurprisingly, many migrants disappear within the region each year: while 89,000 have been reported dead or missing since 2014, the actual total is likely to be far higher.

Despite the many and multifaceted challenges of the current migration situation in Latin America and the Caribbean, migrants are making significant – and often overlooked – contributions to the economies and societies both of the countries they settle in and those they leave behind. It is estimated that the integration of Venezuelan migrants, for example, will increase the GDP of host countries by up to 4.5 percent by 2030, while remittances sent by Venezuelans living outside of their country represented 4.6 percent of their home country’s GDP in 2023 alone.

7^th General Assembly of the Red CLAMOR Network, 24-26 September 2024

The Latin American and Caribbean Ecclesial Network on Migration, Displacement, Refuge and Human Trafficking (Red CLAMOR) is a ‘network of networks’ that promotes and develops the pastoral work of Church and Catholic-inspired organizations engaged in welcoming, protecting, and supporting the integration of migrants, displaced persons, refugees, and victims of trafficking in Latin America and the Caribbean. Red CLAMOR was established in 2017 as an initiative of the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM).

Convened under the title of ‘God Walks With His People’, the theme chosen by Pope Francis for the 110^th Vatican World Day of Migrants and Refugees (WDMR), the overarching objective of Red CLAMOR’S 7th General Assembly in Bogotá was to “continue listening to the cries of people in situations of migration, refuge, displacement, and human trafficking”.

Opened by Cardinal Álvaro Ramazzini, Bishop of Huehuetenango, Guatemala, and President of Red CLAMOR, the General Assembly agenda included contributions from migrants and border Bishops, updates from national Red CLAMOR networks, reports from Red CLAMOR Commissions covering areas including advocacy and anti-trafficking, and the presentation of the new Red CLAMOR resource New Guide to the Pastoral Care of Human Mobility.

Presentations and discussions in Bogotá served to underline the activities of the Red CLAMOR network since the 6^th General Assembly of 2023, undertaken in response to the evolving migration situation in the Latin America and Caribbean region. These include extensive partnership work with the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and other Catholic and Catholic-inspired networks centered on asylum, protection, and migration in the region.

Red CLAMOR has also played a central role in key regional and international policymaking processes, such as the Cartagena 40+ process, the Quito Process undertaken as a response to the Venezuelan migration situation, and the December 2023 Global Refugee Forum undertaken in the framework of the Global Compact on Refugees.

The agenda also enabled the presentation of multiple actions by Catholic organizations to welcome and support migrants traveling through the region on their way to the U.S. The services they provide include the delivery of food, clothes, shoes, and medicines in parish communities, providing parish canteens and medical clinics, running shelters and migrant homes on migration routes, providing legal assistance for regularization, and advising on socioeconomic integration.

Alongside these many positive examples of action, General Assembly participants cautioned that the prolongation and worsening of the migration crisis in the region is beginning to negatively affect both donors and pastoral workers, many of whom are experiencing fatigue.

Speaking at the General Assembly, Mr. Alonso Alasino emphasized the central importance of its objective of listening to people in situations of migration, refuge, displacement and human trafficking.

“Only through such listening can we try to give an effective and fair response to their needs and, through this type of event seeks, to share experiences and experiences with other advocacy networks and presence on the ground, discuss government policies, and plan concrete and joint actions for the future,” he explained. “By actively participating in the Red CLAMOR network, ICMC will continue to join forces and share with all participants our work in humanitarian assistance, the creation of ecclesial networks, our role in the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD), as well as our research and focus on matters related to the world of work.”

First MigraRed International Meeting on Migration and Asylum, 27-28 September 2024

The first international meeting of the MigraRed network took place in Bogotá directly after the Red CLAMOR General Assembly. Titled ‘International refugee protection and mixed migratory flows: A question of humanity’, the MigraRed meeting focused on migration situations in all regions of the world, and the work of the Church and Catholic-inspired organizations to advocate for, support, and ensure the dignity of refugees and migrants.

MigraRed is a global initiative bringing together human mobility networks and Caritas worldwide in an international space to share knowledge on challenges and good practices related to different migration contexts around the world.

“Our objective is to jointly build advocacy strategies, creating a network of networks: a global movement that influences more effectively and forcefully at local, regional and global levels,” stated Ms. Cecilia Nicoletti, Advocacy Officer on Migration and Asylum at Caritas Internationalis. “This first edition of MigraRed is held in a region with a significant migration context, within the framework of the 40th anniversary of the Cartagena Declaration and the World Day of Migrants and Refugees. It is not an isolated event, but rather part of a continuous itinerary of events and learning among equals, which encourages us to have a sense of belonging and a global spirit, forming a movement to protect, integrate, welcome and promote the rights of migrants and refugees.”

The MigraRed agenda was structured around a series of roundtable discussions on migration situations and challenges in all regions of the world, taking in policy and legislative changes, migratory routes, humanitarian and protection situations at borders, peacebuilding, integration, climate displacement, and trafficking, and featuring expert presentations and reflections from a diverse range of stakeholders. Roundtables focused heavily on the presentation and sharing of good practices implemented by Church and Catholic-inspired organizations.

Former ICMC Secretary General and current Consultant of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, Rev. Msgr. Robert J. Vitillo, intervened in an expert panel discussing the cooperation of church and faith communities in countries of origin, transit, and origin. “The participants in this MigraRed meeting come from a wide range of organizations that work to welcome, protect, promote, and integrate migrants, refugees, displaced persons and survivors of human trafficking,” he reflected. “Migrared places forced migrants themselves at the center of all our reflection and analysis, as well as strategic action planning, providing a very meaningful way to prepare for the 110th World Day of Migrants and Refugees observed by the Catholic Church.”

Echoing the reflections of many of those participating, Mr. Alonso Alasino reaffirmed ICMC’s strong commitment to supporting and participating in the future development of the MigraRed initiative. “The path we have begun here is not an isolated effort. This is the beginning, or the continuation, of a collective journey that, from Latin America and beyond, seeks to protect, welcome and integrate people in forced mobility,” he stated. It is important to remember that this work is not limited solely to the protection of migrants and displaced persons, but also encompasses their right to decent working conditions. As part of the project ‘The Future of Work, Labour after Laudato Si’, ICMC focuses on promoting opportunities for fair and decent employment, which are fundamental to the integration and wellbeing of refugees and migrants. Let us continue this effort together, with our eyes set on what we can achieve when we work together for justice and dignity for all.”

Looking to the Future: the Cartagena 40+ Process

The international gatherings in Bogotá took place in the same year as the Cartagena 40+ process, the fourth ten-yearly review of the Cartagena Declaration. A non-binding regional agreement on the protection of refugees in Central America, Mexico and Panama, the Cartagena Declaration was agreed in 1984, and developed an expanded protection framework for refugees and asylum seekers.

Each review process produces a new, ten-year Cartagena Action Plan, enabling the Declaration to continue as a permanent process of dialogue and consensus-building, and an ongoing response to the changing regional context of forced migration within the region. In 2024, the review process will lead to a new action plan led by Chile. The key challenge will be in the willingness of States to implement the plan in a meaningful and tangible way, including by updating protection frameworks to reflect new migratory realities and challenges, and avoiding the regression of protection seen in many instances of recent policymaking and State action.

To support the Cartagena 40+ process, the Red CLAMOR network has articulated a series of ten recommendations for the development and implementation of the forthcoming action plan:

1. Guarantee the right to seek and receive asylum, including sufficient State funding allocations to deal with asylum and facilitate integration, especially of indigenous communities.
2. Ensure access to regular legal status during the refugee recognition application procedure, guaranteeing full access to rights on equal terms with nationals, including access to decent work.
3. Promote and strengthen UNHCR’s Local Integration Programme, including by tackling gender aspects of employment in the care sector, a key area of migrant employment.
4. Guarantee inclusion for refugees and migrants through the provision of interpretation and translation.
5. Ensure the investments of international and multilateral agencies reflect local circumstances and promote the participation of refugees and migrants.
6. Establish governance strategies that bring together governments, banks, local non-bank financial actors and entrepreneurs, and asylum seekers and refugees, to ensure relevant products and services respond to the needs of asylum seekers and refugees.
7. Promote education for migrant, refugee, and stateless children and adolescents by simplifying school entry requirements and reducing or eliminating registration fees, paying special attention to unaccompanied/separated children.
8. Work in partnership with civil society organizations and academia to promote professional training programs and foster entrepreneurship amongst migrants and refugees. Support microcredit programs and associated training for migrants and refugees, in particular for women.
9. Ensure improved data protection for migrants and refugees, addressing how and why data is shared across state institutions and services.
10. Ensure labor inspection mechanisms pay attention to the many cases of labor and sexual exploitation involving asylum seekers, and take action against employers and trafficking networks.