ICMC promotes information and experience sharing as well as cooperation between its national member organizations such as Catholic Bishops Conferences and Catholic-inspired organizations serving people on the move, including migrants, asylum-seekers, refugees, internally displaced persons, and survivors of human trafficking. ICMC also coordinates regional working groups that promote and enhance safe migration, humanitarian assistance, and pastoral care to migrating people.
Since 2008, the ICMC Asia-Oceania Working Group gives its members a platform to exchange and collaborate towards developing solutions that protect migrants and refugees in the region and allow them to thrive. Representatives of Asia and Oceania’s Conferences of Bishops and other specialized bodies meet at ICMC’s yearly conference. They share their programs and best practices on a variety of topics, including labor migration, refugee services, human trafficking, and interfaith dialogue.
Among other achievements, the working group has strengthened the Church network’s capacity to protect labor migrants. By linking Church actors in countries of departure and of destination, we can ensure better protection from dangers such as unsafe employment practices, breach of contract, and human trafficking throughout labor migrants’ journeys. Such networks also ease the intervention of law enforcement to protect victimized migrants when necessary.
In collaboration with the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), which comprises the Secretaries-General of the continent’s eight Regional Episcopal Conferences, ICMC co-coordinates the ICMC-SECAM Africa Working Group on Migration.
The group has held regular meetings on regional or sub-regional levels. Issues discussed include regional collaboration to protect and promote migrants’ rights at the national, regional, and continental levels, and to advise ICMC members in Africa on the pastoral care of migrants. It also has organized solidarity visits to countries heavily affected by refugee or migration flows.
Partnering in Burkina Faso
Recently, ICMC and the Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Refugees of Burkina Faso have set out to work together to offer protection and humanitarian assistance to internally displaced people. The new program, which will have a particular focus on children and pay attention to the COVID-19 crisis, will offer child-friendly spaces, access to essential services, as well as education and psychosocial support.
Learn More About the Join Project in Burkina Faso
Partnering in Mali
In 2021, a new ICMC and Caritas Mali’s joint project aims to fight trafficking recruitment and help trafficked women and girls rebuild their lives. This partnership responds to the increase of forced labor and sex trafficking in and around gold mines in Mali, West Africa. Many people, including children, are forced into labor, mainly in small-scale operations with little government oversight. Women and girls are also forced into prostitution in surrounding camps and bars. Caritas Mali and ICMC have partnered to fight human trafficking through prevention and rescue of survivors.
ICMC works to amplify the voice of its members at the international level, bringing their concerns to policymakers through a plethora of advocacy actions undertaken at UN and other intergovernmental fora. In these endeavors, ICMC works in close collaboration with the Permanent Observer Missions of the Holy See to the United Nations in both Geneva and New York City, as well as with the Migrants and Refugees Section of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.
Photos from ICMC’s 2019 Asia-Oceania Working Group Meeting in Bangkok
A panel focused on inter-religious engagement on labor migration brought together religious leaders of different faith traditions.
During the Asia-Oceania Working Group meeting in Bangkok in December 2019, participants exchanged best practices on topics including labor migration, refugee services, human trafficking, and interfaith dialogue.
Exposure trips allowed participants to see the local Church's engagement with migrant communities, such as in this neighborhood of labor migrants from Myanmar.
Field trips allowed participants to see the engagement of the local Church and its partners with migrant communities, such as in this neighborhood of labor migrants from Myanmar.
A panel on labor migration touched upon regional issues related to climate change, domestic workers, youth, the informal economy, and rural development.
During the Working Group meeting, participants exchanged best practices on many topics, including labor migration, refugee services, human trafficking, and interfaith dialogue.
On a field trip to a local Catholic school, participants met with labor migrants who attend courses on their free days. Some courses allow students to complete high-school degrees and qualify for university entrance. The course selection also includes English and Thai de classes.
English class students pose for a photo outside their classrooms.
An exposure visit to a migrant fishing community.
Children perform a traditional dance during a visit to a community from Myanmar.
Children in traditional clothing for a dance during a visit to a community from Myanmar.
