Irregular migrants and voluntary return

Edited speech delivered at Council of Europe 22.6.10

Voluntary return programmes: an effective, human and cost effective mechanism for returning irregular migrants

One of the most pressing issues facing Europe from a human rights perspective is that of migrants’ welfare. It is a perennial problem for Council of Europe contacting states: how best to protect the dignity of immigrants yet at the same time uphold the integrity of the state’s border? Just as was the case with our predecessors in Strasbourg, a huge amount of our time here at the Council of Europe is devoted to the issue of migrants and immigration. The scale of the problem is vast with 10 million irregular migrants currently living in Europe and a further 500,000 additional irregular migrants entering or becoming irregular every year.

The ‘traditional’ way of addressing this problem is via forced return which often involves detention, suffering and hardship on the part of the migrant, and heavy costs on the part of the state. I, like many others, am concerned that forced return often fails to properly balance the dignity of migrants with the integrity of the state. Such a balance should presume in favour of migrants’ human rights if and when a clash occurs between migrants’ welfare and state interests.

It is therefore welcome that we have here before us today a report on a potentially more human rights oriented approach to the issue of irregular migrants. Voluntary return programmes give greater attention to the inherent dignity of migrants while also recognising the socio-economic hardships they face while abroad and at home. It is encouraging to find that 1.6 million people have returned to 160 countries via voluntary assisted programmes. It is even more encouraging to learn that comparatively few returnees re-migrate.

Voluntary return programmes acknowledge the dignity of irregular migrants, asylum seekers, failed asylum seekers and persons held in detention by first of all respecting their innate autonomy. Common sense indicates that the presence of independent bodies, such as the International Organization for Migration (IOM), during initial counselling is the best way to ensure that coercion is avoided. The respect given to migrants via this format can in the long term only lead to improved relations between Council of Europe states and migrant origin states.

The tri-partite return process involved in voluntary return programmes further acknowledges migrants’ dignity, as well as their everyday socio-economic circumstances,  by aiding as best as is practicable the choice of the migrant to return home and to alleviate the burdens which motivated the person to migrate in the first place.

There is no doubt that the three stages of the return process require state investment. The pre-departure stage includes providing information on the current social, political and economic climate in the home country, as well as making contact with family and friends; the transportation stage involves funding or partially funding travel costs; and the post arrival stage involves carefully investing in a support framework for the migrant as he/she tries to reintegrate back into society and, just as importantly, contribute towards that society. This last stage is crucial in addressing the factors leading to the decision to migrate.

Happily it seems that state costs resulting from voluntary return programmes are significantly less than the parallel costs involved in forced return programmes. Some studies even estimate them to be one third the cost of forced return programmes, with the main costs associated with forced return programmes stemming from detention costs. Detention accrues not only economic costs, but also costs to the dignity of the person.

Before I finish I wish to raise a point which I have spoken about many times before. The issue of trafficking is never far away when we discuss migration. It is incumbent upon all contracting states to give priority to the most vulnerable groups in society when it comes to the unjust exercise of state power. Trafficked persons certainly are a vulnerable group and I sincerely hope that the strategy of voluntary return programmes will further humanise our approach to the plight of trafficked children, women and men everywhere by respecting their dignity and their autonomy – both of which are so viciously targeted by traffickers.