As of today, only 27 countries have ratified the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of Migrants. Another 15 countries have signed this document. But among them there is not a single major industrial power. The latter are trying to simply ignore this problem.
Meanwhile, never in the history of mankind has the world seen such a number of migrants. By the most conservative estimates, about 180 million people today live outside their home countries. That is approximately 3% of the entire planet's population.
Migrants work themselves to the bone (often illegally and in unbearable conditions) on the outskirts of Calcutta, New York, Moscow, London, or in the oil emirates. The growing army of migrants is a direct consequence of globalization. There are "needed" and "unneeded" migrants. Take, for example, the United States, the classic country of immigrants. There, "needed" migrants are enterprising people with a good education and... white skin, although officially no one admits it.
But since most migrants began coming from the South, the attitude toward the problem has changed. It is as if people have lost their memory. They forget that they themselves and their ancestors were once migrants. And it is they who laid the foundation for economic and cultural prosperity. Because they brought with them new ideas, new initiatives, new dynamism, without which any society simply marks time. Such, so to speak, forgetfulness is characteristic not only of Americans.
Only in Europe and North America live about 100 million migrants. Why do the leading industrial powers, including Germany, not ratify the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of Migrants? Perhaps because many perceive foreign workers as a kind of "lubricant" for the global economy, as a commodity, or as a machine with a limited service life?
Roughly this is how many entrepreneurs around the world treat foreign workers, for example, the oil sheikhs in the Persian Gulf countries. Their recipe is simple: hired, used, expelled. But people are not commodities or machines. They have their own ideas about social norms and values, their own convictions. This leaves its mark on life in the countries that receive migrants. And the billions they transfer home also influence the way of life there.
Thus, migrants make a significant contribution to economic, political and cultural development throughout the world. They serve as a reserve army of labor, as beasts of burden of the economy. But at the same time they are bearers of new ideas and initiatives, without which change and, ultimately, progress are impossible.
The international UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families provides for a number of legally binding standards that must be observed with respect to both registered and unregistered foreign workers. This is only a first, small step toward protecting the rights of migrants and recognizing their contribution to global development.