Belskaya: Belarus provides all necessary support to forced migrants and refugees from Ukraine
The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration underlines the states’ shared responsibility to mutually respect migration needs and protect the safety and dignity of all migrants, in accordance with international law. At the same time, armed conflicts and interstate inequality, underdevelopment and instability, as well as unilateral coercive measures and climate change increase the vulnerability of many developing countries and their populations, stimulating people’s mobility and contributing to new waves of illegal migration – as stated by the Permanent Representative of Belarus to the UN Office and other international organisations in Geneva, Larysa Belskaya, during her speech at the 114th session of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) Council, which is part of the UN system.
“We welcome IOM’s efforts as one of the leading crisis response agencies, as well as the organisation’s willingness to work with the international community to predict and mitigate the root causes of illegal migration. Belarus shares IOM’s commitment to saving lives and protecting people en route. Migration problems cannot be solved by building walls, denying access to territory or forcibly expelling migrants. Manifestations of racism and xenophobia against migrants must be completely unacceptable. Belarus supports the expansion of IOM’s humanitarian partnership. My country has received a significant number of forced migrants and refugees from Ukraine, providing them with all the necessary support and guaranteeing access to employment, education, medical care and social security. We’re grateful to the IOM and other UN agencies for their support and co-operation in this area,” the diplomat noted.
She underlined that IOM has always been and remains an important partner of Belarus in joint efforts to combat human trafficking and protect its victims, “We thank the IOM for its valuable contribution to the creation of the International Training Centre on Migration and Combating Trafficking in Human Beings in Minsk and its long-term support. We believe that the current increase in migration to Europe is stimulating the activity of traffickers, and therefore efforts by IOM and its member states to combat human trafficking must be strengthened.”
Larysa Belskaya also welcomed the publication of the first global technical guidance on administrative data on trafficking in persons, aimed at addressing the lack of quality evidence and research available for policy and programme development, “Belarus is interested in joining training on this standardised approach, including at the international training centre in Minsk. Taking into account current international trends and IOM’s approach to facilitating legal migration routes, Belarus is also committed to taking appropriate measures. Thus, on July 1st, 2023, new legislation on external labour migration came into force, aimed at reducing bureaucratic barriers to migrants’ access to the national labour market, reducing labour shortages and attracting qualified labour migrants to specific sectors of the economy.”
