Migrant people are the target of all injust policies which at the expense of the rights universally recognised to the Human family, provoke Human beings to oppose one another through the use of discriminatory strategies, based on national preference, ethnic or religious belonging.

 

These policies are imposed by conservative and hegemonic systems who seek to maintain their privileges by exploiting the physical labour and intellectual force of migrants. For this reason they take advantage of the exorbitant prerogatives which the arbitrary power of the Nation-State, as well as that of the world system of domination, allows.

 

Migrants are deprived everywhere of the full right to freedom of movement and settlement on our planet. They are deprived of their right to freedom and peace as well as of their economic, social, political and cultural rights.

 

Only through a broad alliance of migrants will it be possible to promote the emergence of new rights for every person, based on the only fact of his birth without distinction of any kind, such as colour, sex, religion. For this reason, this alliance of migrants, inspired by ethic principles, will have to contribute to the construction of new economic and social policies and to the rewriting of the concept of territoriality and of the contemporary dominant system of world governance and its underlying economical and ideological grounds.

 

This is why we migrants the world over, on the basis of all proposals submitted since 2006, suggest a broad discussion on a planetary level with the aim of adopting herewith, The World Charter of Migrants at our next meeting, February 2011 on the island of Gorée in Senegal.

 

Taking the lives and experiences of migrants as a starting point, our goal and ambition is to establish the full right to freedom of movement and settlement on our planet and to contribute to the construction of a world without walls.

 

 

Since we all belong to the Earth, all people have the full right to freedom of movement and settlement on our planet anywhere on this earth.

 

All person must have the right to freedom of movement from the countryside to the city, from the city to the countryside, from one province to another and the freedom to leave for any country abroad.

 

All laws in regard to visas, laissez-passer and authorisations as well as all those limiting the freedom of movement and settlement must be abolished. Migrants the world over must be entitled to the same rights as the national groups and assume the same responsabilities in all essential domains of the economical, political, cultural and social life. They must have the right to vote and to be eligible in all legislative organs.

 

Migrants must have the right to speak and to share their mother tongue, to develop and to raise awareness on their cultures and their traditional customs, and to practice their religions.

 

All migrants, women and men, must be entitled to the same right to exercise business there where they wish, to engage in industry or to take up a trade. Manual or not, just as in all professions authorised to the national groups. This is essential in order to allow them to assume their part of responsability in the production of the riches necessary to foster the development and fulfillment of all.

 

The earth must be shared amongst those who work. The restrictions imposed to the property of land imposed for ethnic and/or national reasons must be abolished in favour of a new vision of a responsible relationship between human beings and the earth.

 

Migrants are equal before the law and must have the same rights as the national groups. No one must be imprisoned, deported or see his/her freedom restricted without their cause having been equitably heard and defended.

 

All laws which foresee a distinction based on national origin, marriage situation and/or juridical situation as well as on one’s convictions, must be abolished.

 

Human rights are inalienable, one and indivisible and must be the same for all. The law must guarantee to all migrant persons the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the right to freedom of assembly, the right to freedom of association, the right to publish, to practice one’s religion and also to impart to one’s children the education of one’s choice.

 

Work and safety must be assured to all migrants. Whoever works, must be free to found trade unions together with others. Migrant women and men must receive equal salaries to equal work and must have the possiblity to transfer the fruit of their work, without restrictions of any sort, and at the same contribute to the necessary solidarity system of the society of residence.

 

The access to education and training must be guaranteed to all migrants and their children. Education must be free of charge, universal and equal for all children. Higher studies and vocational training must be accessible to all in a new vision of dialogue and sharing of cultures. In cultural life, in sports and in education, all distinctions based on national origin must be abolished.

 

Migrants must have the right to accomodation. Everyone must have the right to live in a place of his/her choice, to be dcently lodged and to maintain their family in comfort and security on an equal basis to all national groups. All migrants strive to have opportunities and responsabilities in an equal measure to national groups, in order to face and deal together contemporary challenges (accomodation, nutrition, health, fulfillment, …).

 

The aim of the principles enounced in The World Charter of Migrants is to contribute to the disappearance of all segregational systems and to the building of a plural world, responsable and full of solidarity.

 

Goree (Senegal), February 05th 2011.

 

For more information: http://www.cmmigrants.org/goree

 

* Last version in French