Permanent Mission of India

Geneva

International Organization for Migration (IOM)

15th Standing Committee on Programmes and Finance (SCPF)

Statement of India

Mr. Chairperson,

1.At the outset, we wish to place on record our sincere appreciation to the Distinguished Chair for successfully steering the proceedings of the meeting of the 15th Standing Committee on Programmes and Finance and to IOM for coming out with a document on "lowering the cost of migration Remittance transfer and recruitment costs".

2.My delegation wishes to commend the leadership of Director General Ambassador Swing for his forward looking and humane approach on the issue of migration, his capable team which is spread across the geographies including in places which are relatively unsafe to work, and for taking up of challenging, action-oriented plans and programmes.  We would also like to thank the Director General for his presentation.

3.The colleagues attending this meeting would certainly appreciate the fact that high cost of migration due to unhealthy recruitment process aided by high cost of remittance adversely impacts the overall process of organised migration. The study carried out by IOM on this issue has rightly pointed out that high remittance and recruitment cost both penalises migrants and their families financially and make them vulnerable to exploitation. We see this study directed towards pointing out the reasons, their side effects and need for addressing this issue. The study is directed towards promoting well-being of the migrant work force, their families, sending and receiving states of the migrants and the global society as a whole.

4.The efforts made by IOM to combine its knowledge of migration and remittances with different specialised agencies such as International Telecom Union (ITU), international Postal Union (IPU) for bringing down the cost of remittances, which has been successfully piloted in Burundi, is welcome.

5.We have also taken note of International Recruitment Integrity System (IRIS), a voluntary accreditation system for international recruitment intermediaries and employers, being developed by IOM through Public-private Alliance. We may like to suggest IOM to throw some light on this programme and explain the potential benefits of this system over the existing system, including the challenges foreseen to implement it.

6.We fully support the endeavours of IOM and other member states to address the important issue of Remittance and Recruitment Cost.

 I thank you Mr. Chairperson.

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