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UN Report

Asia should see migrants as help, not hindrance

AFP, Bangkok
Asian governments should look at the 15 to 20 million migrants in the region as a workforce to be tapped rather than convenient scapegoats for politicians, said a UN report released yesterday.
The report urges Asian leaders to set aside their own countries' concerns and come up with a unified scheme for fighting illegal migration and human trafficking, exploitation and the spread of HIV/A1DS that sometimes follows.
"Governments are still thinking of this as something that needs to ifr-Wert'rather thah'an oh'gdihg-process that needs to be managed," said Federico Soda, a coauthor of the report from the UN's International Organisation for Migration.
The report on international migration in East and Southeast Asia covers 16 separate countries with varying viewpoints on immigrants.
They range from the Singapore, where foreigners now make up 25 percent of the popu-
lation and 30 percent of the workforce, to fledgling East Timor, where immigrants must give up any other passport and pay a daily foreigner tax.
More migrant workers will likely be needed in countries like Singapore and Malaysia, where growth is outpacing the workforce, the report states.
"You have large economies growing at the speed of light and they need workers," said Irena Vojackova-Sollorano, regional representative of IOM.
But the foreign-born worker can
also be a powerful scapegoat when countries have trouble employing their own citizens, said Soda.
" I think it will become especially so if the economic downturn is as sharp as some people think it will be," he said, referring to the current global financial crisis.
One popular destination point for Asian migration isTh ail and.
About 91 percent of the 532,000 low-skilled migrants who came over on work permits in 2007 were from Myanmar, the report said, while four percent were from Laos and five percent were from
Cambodia.
There are also believed to be up to two million illegal migrant workers from impoverished Myanmar in Thailand, many of whom can find themselves forced into sweatshop labour, domestic servitude or the high-risk sex trade.
"Migrant policy is determined with only national interests in mind, but migration is by nature a trans-national problem," said Keiko Osaki of the UN's Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, which co-chaired the report.