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On January 27, 2009, the United Nations Committee on NGOs in New York approved IMADR’s request to the UN for reclassification from “roster” to “special consultative status.” The “special status” for IMADR will be officially conferred by the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in July 2009. The special consultative status will allow IMADR to expand its activities at the UN, for instance, circulating statements at meetings of ECOSOC and its subsidiary bodies.

The International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism
(IMADR)

Exploitative migration caused by neo-liberal globalization
Nowadays, neo-liberal globalization tends to be increasingly feminized and informalized, due to the polarization of the global economy where the rich get richer and the poor poorer. This is one of the root causes of exploitative migration including human trafficking and migrant smuggling.

The international community seems to deal with this problem in two ways. Firstly, the United Nations is strengthening their policies to clamp down on transnational criminal organizations, which are considered major traffickers. Secondly, the UN is trying to set up a Forum for International Migration and Development, based on the recognition that the Millennium Development Goals cannot be achieved unless international migration is made part of sustainable global development.

The clampdown on traffickers and selective immigration policies are not the ultimate solutions
Moreover, our concern is that these initiatives may well worsen, instead of improving, the situation.

Although it is true to a certain extent that arresting and punishing traffickers has positive consequences for victims of trafficking and smuggling, it also works negatively, often making them collateral victims of excessive surveillance and control.

Besides, pursuing international migration for the sake of national economic development, accompanied by the receiving countries’ selective immigration policies, will only benefit skilled labour migration, while aggravating the human insecurity of undocumented migrants.

Thus, the UN’s recent efforts to promote a campaign for “international migration and development,” combined with the War on Terror and on organized crime, may accelerate exploitative migration if not correctly guided by the concerned civil societies. We must prevent the international community from encouraging exploitative migration by increasing restrictions on unskilled labor migration while helping criminal organizations go further underground by a sweeping control of informal sectors.

Forty-four years ago, Kazuo Ishikawa, a man of Buraku origin (a caste-like Japanese minority), was falsely imprisoned for the murder of a schoolgirl. We ask for your help in calling on the Tokyo High Court to deliver justice by granting a retrial of the case. Visit the Sayama Case website to learn about the Sayama Case and Buraku discrimination in Japan.

Last year, the Yoko Tada Foundation for Human Rights awarded Kazuo Ishikawa the 18th Tada Human Rights Prize for his work in the fighting the miscarriage of justice. “We have great respect for Mr. Ishikawa in his 43-year battle,” the award committee said, “We want to show our solidarity with him, in hopes that he will win his third appeal for the retrial and reinvestigation of the Sayama Case and that the false charges against him are dropped.”

To date, over one million people have shown their support for Ishikawa by signing the Sayama Case petition. Please join them! Sign the petition here (external link).