New Delhi – On 30 March 2022, IOM organised a round table discussion to familiarise media colleagues with IOM’s policies and mandates devised within the international human rights and labour standards framework with practical evidence from interventions for responsible recruitment, promotion of ethical business practices and ensuring safe migration. Secondly, to provide a nuanced understanding on migration and related processes for contextualised and regular reporting of human-centric stories on migration. The overarching agenda of the discussion was to highlight the social, economic and cultural perspectives on migration.

Acknowledging that visibility in mainstream media is competitive and often fleeting, IOM kicked off the discussion by laying down the basics of migration and how it intersects with human rights issues, making safe migration, a vital imperative, and constantly newsworthy. Mr. Amit Chowdhury, IOM’s National Project Officer, talked about migrant workers’ contribution in terms of remittances that sustain entire countries’ economies and asking how stakeholders, such as employers and businesses could be made responsible in their conduct towards migrant workers.

Mr. S. M. Khan, a 1982 batch IIS officer, delivered the keynote speech emphasizing the importance of migration, enshrined under Article 19 (1) of the Indian Constitution as the Right to Freedom of Movement. Exercise of this freedom, even if voluntarily done, “is rife with hardships”, and only makes the news as “hot topics”, rather than as an endemic and persistent, socio-economic problem, requiring multistakeholder mobilization of efforts. He lamented the fact that at times “migrants are made to feel like foreigners in their own country” often due to “stereotyping as heroes, victims or threats”. Therefore, the media needs to examine and reposition its lenses and provide an in-depth narrative to migration, highlight systemic challenges, draw the attention of governments.

On the expression of concern over the lack of academic focus on migration and its absence from Indian curricula, Mr. Sarat Dash, IOM DGs’ Special Envoy to India, juxtaposed migrant workers’ contribution to supply chains and labour markets, with migration being studied and researched in International Relations and Development Studies and “Migration Studies being a discipline in itself.” He recommended “mainstreaming migration reportage” through which “the media would be able to sensitize relevant stakeholders on a regular basis”.

Mr. Sanjay Awasthi, Head of Office, IOM India, talked about the lockdown which was “unprecedented”, where “every wave was different” but better, in terms of preparation” and “management of human mobility”. He talked about the various headways being made in managing migration, such as the MIGApp, developed by IOM, for providing migrant workers with pre-departure information, post arrival information and methods to access services throughout their journeys. Efforts to develop such platforms within the Indian context are underway. Furthermore, technologies like Big Data analytics can play a vital role in understanding trends in migration, that may otherwise go unnoticed.

IOM rounded off the discussion by enumerating the diverse interventions to carry out its mandate of safe, orderly and human migration, with various stakeholders as its implementing partners. The discussion concluded with media colleagues agreeing to develop synergy as one of the stakeholders for highlighting migration as one of the most important issues within the Indian context.