Issue of forced migrations lacks attention

Three days ago the world marked yet another World Health Day and luckily, it did not go unnoticed by some member states. The Republic of South Africa used the opportunity to emphasize the important of the issue of safe access to health services for forced migrants. We asked some of the delegates for their standpoint on this topic to see how many member states share the views with South Africa. Unfortunately, most of the delegates whom we contacted did not respond - however, does who did, were quite divided in their points of views.

The delegate of the Republic of South Africa informed us about the standpoint of South Africa regarding the health issues of forced migrants. "In the light of the GA 2013 sessions, South Africa would like to emphasize that each and every person should have the right to safe access to health services. As all categories of forced migrants are under the risk of being affected, they should be provided with health services, either by states or by international governmental and non-governmental organisations in case states are not able to do so." It seems from the press release that South Africa is very determined that discussions regarding forced migration shall not lack provisions on health of forced migrants.

How many supporters does South Africa have in its plight to provide the right to safe access to health services to forced migrants? We asked several delegates about the issue - especially the ones that haven't expressed their opinion on the matter of forced migrations yet. Sadly, only four delegates responded.

It seems that South Africa might partly count on the support of Sweden. "Sweden believes that the right to health is one of the fundamental human rights of every human being," said the delegate. Part of Swedish development cooperation is already aimed at healthcare and security, and it is their intention to further strenghten our cooperation on this field. Cuba is even more determined to tag along with South Africa: "Cuba definitely supports the right of everyone to safe access to health service and therefore, we do not see an obstacle of taking this issue into consideration."

Unfortunately, Russian Federation does not share the views. "Russian Federation takes care of internally displaced Russians, Russian citizens who were forced to return from a foreign countries, stateless persons currently living on our territory and ex-USSR citizens, if they were previously prevented to settle in Russian Federation due to suppression because of national, racial affilation, religion, language, political opinion or specific social group membership. As we are successfully ensuring the privlieges, we believe the primary jurisdiction should remain in the hands of the state authorities. Furthermore any system established with resolution, should not obstruct security of states and should not interfere in internal affaires of the state." South Africa also won't find the support in France. Although the French delegate did emphasize the importance of access to health services, they strongly believe that: "Our primary focus should be establishing new policies and mechanisms that would enable us to more effectively prevent forced migration when possible."

Unfortunately, delegates of China, Ghana, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Tunisia and Venezuela did not respond.  Therefore we cannot predict, what will be the main focus of member states regarding the issue of forced migrations. If they do decide to share their viewpoints with us, we invite them to respond in the comment section.

Tamara Kajtazović