UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON RIGHTS OF MIGRANTS TO VISIT MEXICO AND US-MEXICAN BORDER

19 February 2002




The Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Gabriela Rodríguez Pizarro, has been invited by the Governments of Mexico and the United States to carry out a fact-finding mission to Mexico and the US-Mexican border. The visit will begin on 25 February in Mexico City and conclude on 18 March in Washington, D.C.

During the visit the Special Rapporteur will also go to Veracruz and Michoacán, on Mexico’s southern border, as well as to a number of cities on the border between the United States and Mexico, including San Diego, Tijuana, Laredo and Nuevo Laredo.

The Special Rapporteur will meet with immigration authorities from the United States and Mexico, as well as high-level officials from the executive and legislative branches of both countries. The Special Rapporteur will visit border posts, detention centres and communities of origin of migrants. She will also meet with non-governmental organizations, academics and migrants.

According to her mandate, the objectives of the Special Rapporteur’s visit will be:

a) To request and receive information from all relevant sources, including migrants themselves, on violations of the human rights of migrants and their families;

(b) To formulate appropriate recommendations to prevent and remedy violations of the human rights of migrants, wherever they may occur;

(c) To promote the effective application of relevant international norms and standards on the issue;

(d) To recommend actions and measures applicable at the national, regional and international levels to eliminate violations of the human rights of migrants, and

(e) To take into account a gender perspective when requesting and analysing information, as well as to give special attention to the occurrence of multiple discrimination and violence against migrant women;

Mrs. Rodríguez Pizarro was appointed Special Rapporteur following the adoption of Commission resolution 1999/44. She will present an oral report on her visit to the Commission’s fifty-eighth session, to be held in Geneva from 18 March to 26 April 2002.




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