Morocco calls industrialized countries to protect immigrants

Moroccan minister of human rights, Mohamed Aujjar, called Monday industrialized countries to adhered to the 1990 international convention on the protection of immigrants and their relatives.

Speaking at a conference held in Tangiers on "Moroccan expatriates and human rights," the minister explained that the convention drafted by the international community to fill a legal void is not yet enforced because it has not obtained the required number of ratifications.

"No industrialized countries has signed this covenant," he said urging immigrants host countries to speed up procedures for the signing and ratification of this convention that will provide a clear legal basis for the protection of expatriate workers and their families.

The minister recalled that migration to western Europe has intensified in the second half of the century as the host countries were in need of re-building their economies battered by the second world war and to meet their economic development needs.

He added that the upsurge of racism and hatred towards aliens in some industrialized countries is a regrettable phenomenon that led to tensions and to a demagogic exploitation of the economic and social hardships by some extremist parties and movements. He went on that as a result, human rights of expatriates are violated and breached, despite the legal guarantees existing in host countries.

The minister called for protecting immigrants' rights and urged home and host countries to seek global, humanitarian and creative solutions as the security approach has proved inefficient. For Aujjar, immigration should be seen as a bridge of communication, dialogue and co-existence in the interest of all peoples.

Touching on Morocco's human rights record, the minister said the government is resolved to exert utmost efforts to carry out the Moroccan king's instructions to close the issue once for all in a six-month period.

Taking the floor, secretary of state for cooperation, Aicha Belarbi, insisted on the seriousness of the situation of Moroccans settled in western Europe and called for the ratification of the international convention and for authorizing immigrants to be represented in elected bodies.

She deemed that the human rights violations targeting immigrants cast doubt on the credibility of immigration policies enforced by host countries.