AKEL on International Migrants Day – 18th December
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 17th December 2019, Nicosia
On the occasion of International Migrants Day, AKEL addresses a warm greeting to all immigrants living and working in Cyprus.
At the same time, it extends a warm greeting to all Cypriots who have emigrated abroad in search of a better life. All of them are the reply to all those trying to cultivate among our people the misogynist ideology of racism, portraying immigrants as “stealing our jobs and bread”.
The right to work and a dignified life is being stolen from workers by anti-social policies, the deregulation of labour relations and exploitation.
Migration is not an end in itself for any human being, for any people. It is the result of the imperialist attacks, ongoing wars, social and political oppression and economic poverty that millions of people across the world are suffering from. These are all generating the phenomenon of migration, as the result of the system we live in.
18th December was established by the UN as International Migrants Day in an effort to enhance its campaign for the implementation of the International Convention for the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Their Families.
This demands a comprehensive immigration policy that must cover the full range of issues related to entry, residence and access to labour and social rights with a commitment to respect human rights and dignity. The Government and the responsible Ministry must at long last pay the necessary attention to policies promoting integration and not to repressive measures. We have obligations stemming from Human Rights conventions. We receive funding from European institutions to meet those obligations and we have to do so in practice, not by expressing meaningless wishes and empty slogans.
On the occasion of 18th December, AKEL reaffirms that it will continue its struggle to achieve social cohesion through the integration of immigrants into our society, for labour rights and gains of all working people, the unity and class unison of working people, for the stamping out of racism and nationalism and combating of human trafficking, whether for sexual or labour exploitation.
