Dear Participants, Dear representatives of the governments,
My name is Doros Polykarpou. I work for a small NGO in Cyprus called KISA – Action for Equality, Support, Antiracism, and I would like to thank you for the opportunity to participate and speak at the 2015 Global Forum for Migration and Development, in this wonderful city. We talk these days a lot about the so called refugee crisis. In Cyprus, we don’t face such a crisis, we “solved” the problem: We treat migrants according to the so called KEFALA system, as if they were contemporary slaves, and we make the life of the refugees so miserable that they don’t want to come or stay in Cyprus. However, I will not speak about Cyprus, as it’s too pointless to speak about such a small country when you see the issue from a global point of view and perspective.
I liked the reference made by one of the previous speakers to the people who try to move away from “threatening for them and their families situations.” I agree that we need to take into account that people try by all means to leave their countries because of two reasons mainly: either because they and their families, including their children, cannot live in safety and free from persecution in their countries of origins anymore, or because they cannot provide for themselves and their children a dignified life and decent work anymore. Because they don’t have any other option, they are ready to take high risks in order to maintain the hope for a future for themselves and their children. This is why we speak about people who leave threatening situations.
The main question here is in which direction you are going to move with your discussions and decisions the next two days. The EU member states have been discussing for the last 10 years the need of a common asylum system. Unfortunately, such a common asylum system was never established, because mainly of the lack of political will by the member states and the continuous effort of each member state to push refugees to other countries rather than share together this responsibility. For years, the discussion of the member states on the need to develop routes for regular migration was resulting in actions only in the area of border controls and the so called fight against irregular migration. The incapacity of the EU to respond to the current situation and the need to protect the refugees is mainly the result of the failure of the EU to act in the correct direction on the above issues.
The main question for this Forum is, in my opinion, whether you want to continue this policy, which has already failed, by trying to build more walls and barriers against these people in order to stop them from reaching a safe country, where they will be able to live in dignity, or you will stand by the demands of our times and decide to initiate actions and plans that understand the needs of these people for safe and dignified life and for decent employment.
Dear Government delegates of the 2015 GFMD,
We, civil society representatives, will not be here tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. We will be happy to continue our dialog with you, but you are the ones, who have to lead, assume responsibility, and take decisions that provide answers to the current realities and respond to the needs of the people.
Thank you very much.
