Committee on the rights of migrant workers concludes sixteenth session

PROVISIONAL ROUNDUP

27 April 2012

Adopts Concluding Observations and Recommendations on Reports of Paraguay and Tajikistan

The Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families today concluded its sixteenth session after adopting its concluding observations and recommendations on the initial reports of Paraguay and Tajikistan.

The concluding observations and recommendations on the reports of Paraguay and Tajikistan will be available on the Committee’s webpage next week.

Closing the session, Abdelhamid El Jamri, Chairperson of the Committee, summarized the work accomplished by the Committee during the week, which included a review of the reports of Paraguay and Tajikistan and the adoption of the lists of issues for Rwanda, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Azerbaijan, Philippines, El Salvador and Mali, whose reports will be considered in future sessions. They also adopted an amendment to the Committee’s rules of procedure to allow it to review the situation in a State party in the absence of a report, and they continued their discussion on a draft General Comment on the rights of migrant workers in an irregular situation and members of their families. Mr. El Jamri said the Committee hoped to adopt the General Comment at the next session in September 2012.

In addition, Mr. El Jamri said that the Committee had discussed questions related to its methods of work, including the harmonization of working methods between the treaty bodies and other questions on reinforcing the treaty bodies. The Committee adopted its annual report to be presented to the General Assembly before closing its session.

The sixteenth session was opened with an address by United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, in which she said that human rights in the context of migration remained at the top of her agenda. Violations of migrants were becoming commonplace at international borders, and migration and border-management policies worldwide were forcing many migrants into dangerous modes of travel.

The seventeenth session of the Committee will be held from 10 to 14 September 2012 at the Palais Wilson in Geneva, when the Committee will consider the initial report of Rwanda and the second periodic report of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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For use of the information media; not an official record