On Thursday, August 1, 2019, Assistant to the Permanent Secretary of Labour Mrs. Phattana Phanfak, attended the meeting for the working committee on the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) at Meeting Room 3, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The objective of the meeting was to consider and determine the issues that Thailand will focus on bringing GCR and GCM to practice and coordinating Thailand’s view for the Global Refugee Forum (GRF).
The GCM is an international non-legally binding agreement that sets out the framework for international migration for safe, orderly and regular migration to cover migrants. The GCM has been approved by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) during the 73rd full session on December 19, 2018, in Marrakech, Morroco. The GCM is related to the power framework, whereby the duties of the Ministry of Labour regarding migration in the context of international labour mobility has a scope covering only those migrants with a status of a “migrant worker” for safe, orderly and regular labour migration.
Thailand will give priority to the introduction of GCM in the initial stage, including (1) Protection, opposition and elimination of human trafficking in the context of international migration (2) Allowing migrants to access essential services (3) Strengthening international efforts in the issue of smuggling of migrants (4) Facilitating the provision of jobs and ensuring moral recruitment and maintaining various conditions that ensures that the work is a valuable job, and (5) Increasing channels and the flexibility of the channels for regular migration.
The Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) consists of the following key areas (1) Comprehensive framework for assistance and protection of refugees (2) Action plan for dealing with the large scale movement of refugees or protracted asylum situations such as operational measures to share burden and responsibility, community assistance, problem solving and (3) Tracking and reviewing the scope of enforcement to migrants, covering only “refugees”.
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Bureau of International Cooperation/
ASEAN Sub-division/
1 August 2019
