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January 14th is the 93rd World Day of Migrants and Refugees.

Migration has become a present and pressing reality that deeply affects societies in developed and developing countries, in wealth and in poverty. The Global Commission on international Migration considered that there were nearly 200 million migrants in 2005, which is more than double the figure of 1980. In fact migration has reached the top of the political agenda.

Many societies tend to react in protective ways whereby the needs of the individual are very often ignored. Millions of migrants are left in in-between situations or are returned unaided. Hundreds of thousands continue to fall victims each year to inhumane human trafficking, which has become the world's third most profitable crime.

The Church has repeatedly and strongly voiced its vision on the need to protect people who are marginalized and vulnerable and to defend the fundamental right to move. Already in 1951 H.E. Cardinal Montini indicated that "Immigration barriers must be broken down to admit the homeless refugees." The International Catholic Migration Commission was then created to serve this purpose and has been active ever since. In his message for the 93rd World Day of Migrants and Refugees, the Holy Father invites us to focus on the migrant family and focuses on "the difficulties that every migrant family lives through, the hardship and humiliations, the deprivation and fragility of millions and millions of migrants, refugees and internally displaced people."

Migration has had many faces over the past 55 years and so has the International Catholic Migration Commission, which has continuously adapted its structures to match new realities. We work as a commission, as an operational agency and as a voice on behalf of refugees and migrants world wide.

ICMC is an important tool for the Church to raise its voice at an international level. This voice proves to be of the highest importance to balance some of the purely defensive and, in a growing number of cases, offensive attitudes. Last September ICMC was one of the five NGO's worldwide to address the UN General Assembly High Level Dialogue on Migration and Development.