Migrants and Their Right to Communicate

Migrants crossing into Mexico near Tecún Umán, Guatemala, where WACC-Latin America held a workshop on the communication rights of migrants.

 The event was hosted at the ‘Casa del Migrante’ a mission of the Scalabrini Fathers for migrants, and participants visited the border and witnessed people being deported. The stories of migrant rights activists and journalists covering migration issues were given prominence and participants, divided into groups, also spent several hours listening to migrants tell their stories. Four papers were presented:  

- a piece looking at why the study of migrants is specially important in today's world, placing human migration in the Americas in the economic, cultural and political context of globalisation and with a special reference to the militarisation of the US borders.
- a piece on how migrants could keep in touch and build their own identity using the internet despite living in precarious circumstances.
- a case study looking at how one community in Sonora, Mexico, has responded to becoming a key stopping point on the migration trail.
- a theological reflection piece looking at migrants as people of God.
The products of the seminar will be:
- a one page 'decalogue' or style guide for journalists covering migration issues.
- a pocket reference guide for migrants listing their rights and including an extensive list of migrant service centres throughout Mexico and the US supplemented by a web-based network with information available on the service centres.
- the 'memoria' of the meeting.

These documents will be available from both WACC and WACC-Latin America from the websites and the e-mail lists. See www.wacc-al.org

Also, for more information you may contact Jackie Keltie de Arreaza, Technical Secretary of the Latin America region