The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has stressed the need to protect migrants traveling across the ECOWAS subregion.
IOM Ghana Chief of Mission, Sylvia Lopez- Ekra, made this known on Thursday at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, in Accra while delivering a welcome address at the opening ceremony of a two-day advocacy, sensitization and support programme on the implementation of the ECOWAS national biometric card.
The programme is being organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, ECOWAS and IOM.
It seeks to among other things raise awarenesses among citizens in the subregion on various regional instruments on free movement or migration.
The IOM Chief of Mission thanked the Government of Ghana and ECOWAS for holding the town hall meeting.
Touching on the migration situation around the world, she said “we live in an era of unprecedented human mobility.”
Today, she revealed, one in every seven person is a migrant.
She therefore observed the need for migrants protection.
In Africa, she said, young people risk their lives through the Mediterranean to travel to Europe.
Young women, according to her, are deceived by some travel agencies in their quests to get domestic jobs overseas.
“Stories of abuse are abound in our newspapers and on our television,” she said.
The need to protect all migrants traveling through ECOWAS region is crucial, she stated.
ECOWAS officials, civil society and the media, according to her, have a role to play in raising public awareness on free movement in the region.
She stated that migration has always been and will always be; “it is here to stay and will always be part of the world we live”
Migration is necessary for socioeconomic development and growth, she noted, adding that migration is desirable when it is well governed.