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The United Nations is increasingly engaging with faith-based organizations in collaboration on migration and work with refugees and it heard the voices of religious leaders, including the World Council of Churches (WCC), when they met to offer recommendations on global compacts for people on the move.
They met at the Palais des Nations on 26 June to lay out their vision.
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, president of Caritas Internationalis, asserted, “If the ‘dream’ of a peaceful world is shared by all, if the refugees’ and migrants’ contribution is properly evaluated, then humanity can become more and more of a universal family and our earth a true ‘common home’.”
‘Identifying early warning signs’
Jack Palmer-White, the Anglican Communion’s permanent representative to the UN cited the work of churches and other faith communities in identifying early warning signs of potential displacement, meeting the physical and spiritual needs of displaced populations, or dealing with their own displacement, within countries, and across borders.
“As stakeholders come to agree and implement the two global compacts later this year, it is vital that the expertise and experience of faith communities is recognized as part of the solution.”
Youth ambassador for the Global Campaign to End Child Immigration Detention, Hayat Akbari, fled his homeland at the age of 17 and spent more than a year at an Indonesian detention centre.
“It was one of hardest times in my life,” he said, “There were 42 of us living in one room, where we were all different ages.”
He pleaded for UN Member States to implement the human rights standard which acknowledges that detention violates child rights.
The United Nations set out ambitious plans to create more effective and humane collaboration on migration and refugees with the New York Declaration adopted by its Member States in September 2016.
It was the starting point for talks on two compacts, the Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and the Compact on Refugees, to be adopted in 2018.
