Interview

Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria has served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights since 2018. From 2006–2010 and 2014–2018, she served as president of Chile, the first woman to hold that post and the first elected female leader in South America. After leaving the Chilean presidency in 2010 she was appointed the first executive director of the newly created United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.

Because many migrants are compelled to leave their homes for a combination of factors, sometimes they are not recognised as people who need protection, for example because of persecution or armed conflict. But many people are nevertheless vulnerable because of poverty, food insecurity, the adverse effects of climate change, or because they are searching for healthcare, for decent work, or for family reunification, or many things. Unfortunately, and especially in mixed movements, they are often denied of any meaningful access to protection.

So, what do we do to address this? First of all, we monitor the situation of migrants around the world while helping to build the capacity of member states or other actors to address human rights issues. We work with states to raise awareness of the human rights of migrants, and we promote national dialogues with the authorities, with civil society organisations, with communities and migrants. We try to help implement laws that close the protection gaps for migrants. Second, we also work to build more human narratives on migrants and migration. So we try to reframe the toxic and divisive narratives that you often see of “us vs. them”, of “regular vs. irregular”, or “those who are deserving vs. undeserving of protection”.

We also give a particular importance to migrants in vulnerable situations. That doesn’t mean that we believe that migrants are inherently vulnerable. But migrants can become vulnerable to human rights violations because of a range of situational and personal factors. For example, as a result of what compelled them to leave the country of origin or the circumstances in which they leave, or the situation at the countries of destination, how well they were welcomed and so on, or of course, the conditions that they face on arrival. But also due to personal characteristics such as their age, race, gender identity, disabilities, or other factors. Many may not qualify as refugees, yet they’re vulnerable and they need protection, and unfortunately in many countries, they don’t have it. So, we try to work on all of this. Within the UN system, we are part of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee for humanitarian coordination, and we are also part of the Executive Committee of the UN Network on Migration. So, we work there also to strengthen how the human rights approach is implemented in the task of the Global Compact for Migration.

As you can imagine, we have documented serious human rights violations and abuses against migrants. What we see is criminalisation, torture, arbitrary detention, and sexual violence in many places, and no access to justice, and of course, really precarious access to other rights and social services. Not just in Libya, you see it in other places as well unfortunately. And we have seen it in relation to all kinds of migration, whether linked to climate change, internal conflict, or other human rights violations. So, we think there is a need for greater solidarity so that people, first of all, are not compelled to leave their homes, and that when they do choose to migrate, they have more opportunities to do so in safety and dignity. “

At the OHCHR, we try to reframe the toxic and divisive narratives that you often see of “us vs. them”, of “regular vs. irregular”, or “those who are deserving vs. undeserving of protection.

And what this requires, and these are some of the recommendations that we are making, is first of all, to decriminalise irregular migration. The other thing that is very important is to support humanitarian NGOs and human rights defenders who are providing life-saving assistance to migrants. Unfortunately, in many countries even they have been criminalised. So we need to decriminalise migration but we also need to support those who really want to support migrants at risk.

Second, we believe there need to be adequate search and rescue operations along precarious migration routes because we have seen, unfortunately, that the criminalisation of these activities does not stop migration; it will not stop people from moving. It will only compel them into more risky situations and more dangerous routes.

We also think it’s important to expand the availability of safe and regular pathways. And that’s one of the things that we are calling for not only in Libya but also in Afghanistan and many other countries around the world, to ensure there are sufficient pathways for safe and regular migration so that refugees and other migrants are not compelled to undertake desperate journeys or to put themselves and their families at risk.

We see criminalisation, torture, arbitrary detention, and sexual violence against migrants in many places, and no access to justice, and precarious access to other rights and social services.

Finally, we recommend that states take steps to review, and revise if necessary, their current international cooperation on border management to ensure they do not undermine human rights.

It is true that too many responses to migration today are based on policies, I would say, of exclusion, rather than inclusion. They are premised on the idea that being tough on migration will either stop people from moving in the first place or make their lives so difficult that they would like to return to their countries of origin. But let me be clear, there’s no empirical evidence that such approaches meet their desired goals. But we do know that they increase the suffering of the people and lead to the marginalisation of migrants, particularly the undocumented. So, we see that “tough on migration” policies are not working at all. All they do is increase discrimination and deep-seated attitudes of prejudice and of xenophobia. Not only what the authorities do in terms of trying to stop migrants, or criminalise migrants, or arbitrarily detain migrants, but also many times they are used as, I would say, populist scapegoats for policy failures that have nothing to do with migration.

And so I do believe that migration is a normal phenomenon in the whole of history. My name is Bachelet, I’m a Chilean, my great-grandparents came from Chassagne-Montrachet [in eastern France] when they had this epidemic of phylloxera that attacked the wines that they were producing, so they looked for a country in the south of South America where they could go to. And in my country, only the indigenous peoples are the real native people, and the rest of us are migrants or descendants of migrants. So, it is a natural system.

But what we see today is that much of migration is linked also to lack of opportunities, to poverty, to conflicts, to things where humanity can do something about it. I think that migration is a normal process, but many people are compelled to migrate because of the failure of governments and international community to be able to solve the most essential problems of life.

Criminalisation of search and rescue operations does not stop migration. It will only compel them into more risky situations and more dangerous routes.

I’m not saying that we need to stop migration. What I do believe is that we need to solve and address the reasons that compel people to migrate out of necessity rather than free choice, because I don’t think that the majority of people really want to leave their homes, where they have had their livelihoods for some time, where their ancestors are buried. At the same time, I think that efforts to control migration are doomed to fail, because it’s not about putting tougher and tougher measures in place, but about building more open and inclusive societies where we recognise and embrace the contributions of all people.

We have seen that the current pandemic has disproportionally affected people and communities who are already vulnerable and in marginalised situations. These include women, older people, people with disabilities, indigenous people, LGBTI communities, poor people, and of course people on the move, and that means refugees, migrants, and IDPs who have been particularly affected. But where there are intersections the impact is even worse. For example, you have a woman who is disabled, who is poor and has to migrate, she will be disproportionately impacted. What we do believe, and this is true with migrants as well, is not that they’re inherently vulnerable, but that the conditions they face can leave them without access to a lot of things. They can have obstacles in accessing healthcare for example, including access to Covid-19 vaccinations, or be unable to physically distance due to their labour or housing conditions.

I think that migrants can also be particularly vulnerable to stigma and discrimination and can be excluded in law or in policy or in practice from access to rights, and particularly in the context of public health and recovery response. The other situation that migrants can face is when they are in an irregular situation, they may fear to go to a healthcare facility because they can be arbitrarily detained because of their immigration status. We know that many people in the poorest conditions have less access to healthcare, and if they also don’t have access to a regular migration status there will be even worse access.

And they have all the other obstacles, including language obstacles and cultural barriers, the cost obstacles, the lack of information about where to go, what to do as well as the wide-reaching consequences of xenophobic attitudes and behaviours.

The other thing that we saw is border closures, and I would say all over the world, even in my country Chile, at some point they closed the borders, so we had lots of people who were stranded at the borders without any possibility of going anywhere and along with many tough measures undermining the right to seek asylum and other human rights protections.

So we at OHCHR call for regularisation of the undocumented, we call for expanding residence permits for people who are migrating, and of course, to stop all forced returns during the pandemic.

I think that it’s clear that anthropogenic climate change has enormous human right effects, and I have to tell you something that surprises me: when I speak in many places people don’t see the relationship between climate change and human rights, and also on health. So, I think that those effects are compounded by the inter-related environmental crisis of biodiversity loss and pollution. So, it’s important to deal with climate change, but also biodiversity and pollution as well.

We have two opportunities as an international community. In November, COP26 in Glasgow will speak about climate change, but then next year we have the Convention on Biological Diversity COP15, where states will craft the post-2020 biodiversity framework 2020 and should work on how we ensure that biodiversity can be respected. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted that increasing risk of floods, droughts, storms, other slow-onset events will undermine livelihoods, increase human suffering and risk to people living in those impacted areas, and as a result, there will be increased human migration, both within and across borders.

We know that every year at least 20 million people currently move within the borders of their own country because of climate and weather-related disasters. There are also a large number of people moving across international borders who may fall outside the legal protections provided by the refugee regime, so it’s particularly important that they have access to protection under human rights law.

States need to take effective measures to, first of all, reduce vulnerabilities and, of course, make good on what they committed to at the Paris Agreements in terms of all the measures for mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage, and to limit the need for climate-related migration. They need to plan and prepare for natural disasters, extreme weather events, and also so-called slow-onset processes. And this requires taking steps to reduce existing vulnerabilities and build resilience inside the countries.

The pandemic has disproportionally affected people and communities who are already vulnerable and marginalised. These include women, older people, people with disabilities, indigenous people, LGBTI communities, poor people, and of course people on the move.

But on the other hand, migration away from areas affected by climate change is a fundamental right and may provide individuals and communities the opportunity to avoid climate impacts and improve resilience. But again, it can generate new risk and result in exploitation or discrimination or exacerbate the existing inequalities.

I think we need to continue working much more on trying to avoid getting into the situation in relation to climate change that can produce terrible effects on humankind. But on the other hand, try at the same time to prepare better for all the impacts, including climateinduced migration.

I was honoured to have the occasion to be in Marrakesh, and to participate in many meetings there for the adoption of the Global Compact for Migration in December 2018. It was one of my first trips as high commissioner because I just started the first of September that year. And of course, it was very important because it also took place on the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So, we could link very importantly both things. It was also the International Day of Human Rights on the 10th of December.

What my office said in that moment, and I think is still true, is that in adopting the Global Compact for Migration, the United Nations steered a course away from a failed paradigm of migration policy of previous years that have left migrants to drown at sea or die in the desert. The Global Compact reaffirmed key human rights obligations already codified in international law and was proof that even though there were some discussions, and although some countries were not so supportive of it, at the end, the majority of countries supported it. So, it showed that multilateralism still works, especially for the most sensitive issues that we have to confront. And it was a clear response to global challenges.

In our view, the Global Compact is a balanced and principled human rights document that provides significant opportunity. However, it’s important to know that the Global Compact was not an end in itself. It was rather an important starting point for improved global migration governance. So, while it was a landmark achievement, and built on years of multilateral cooperation and norm-setting in the field of migration, this multilateral cooperation continues today as member states begin to implement the compact’s commitments, and will be reporting back to the General Assembly on the progress achieved during the International Migration Review Forum in 2022.

Covid-19 has produced a lot of obstacles and has made things even more difficult. But I believe that we’re still in the early stages of implementation, and of follow-up and review.

It’s not an easy issue. But we have certain reasons for optimism, because it has enjoyed the overwhelming support of UN member states. And we have a lot of member states that are GCM champions across the world, that are showing other countries that human rights-based migration policies can help, can work. And if they can do it, other countries can do it. To share good practices with others and to show how much they have implemented it. In my work I usually remember, what Desmond Tutu said: that you have to be a prisoner of hope, because when you work in difficult areas, you cannot give up, so I have to be a prisoner of hope.

In my work I usually remember, what Desmond Tutu said: that you have to be a prisoner of hope, because when you work in difficult areas, you cannot give up.

I’m really committed to migration because of many different reasons. Principally, because I believe in human rights of the people, but also because I have great experiences with migrants and being a migrant myself. And one of the things that I believe we need to show more are the human stories. I mean, to not always speak solely about the negative things happening, but also how migrants have contributed to their countries. They have been scientists, artists, presidents, footballers, et cetera. We need to show much more the contribution of people who have been discriminated against, but at the same time contributed so much and have enriched our societies.