Government officials from 21 Caribbean countries, along with
representatives of observer governments and regional institutions,
including CARICOM, the Pan American Health Organization, the
Inter-American Development Bank, the Organization of American
States, the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the
Caribbean, and the University of the West Indies will gather next
week in the Cayman Islands for an annual seminar on migration in
the Caribbean jointly organized by IOM and the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

During the four-day event beginning 5 November, participants
will discuss contingency planning for mass migration and refugee
emergencies; responses to the diverse challenges of human
trafficking and ways to strengthen regional integration as well as
legal frameworks to better respond to migratory flows and to
protect migrants and refugees.

The Caribbean region is characterized by a very fluid internal
movement of persons and by significant transit movement of
non-Caribbean migrants.  Lack of economic opportunities in
many areas, coupled with historical patterns of movement and in
some cases, human rights abuses and disasters – manmade or
natural – are the main drivers influencing migration from and
within the Caribbean.

The region also has one of the highest emigration rates with
Caribbean migrants mostly going to the United States. In the 2000
US Census, they totalled nearly 2.9 million or 9.6 per cent of the
foreign-born population with inflows into the US continuing to be
significant.

Intra-regional movements are estimated at 10 per cent of overall
migration. Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Guyana and Jamaica are
the main source countries for other Caribbean destinations, while
The Bahamas, the British and US Virgin Islands, and the Turks and
Caicos are the main receiving countries and territories.

In a joint statement issued by the Heads of State and Government
participating in the June 2007 Conference on the Caribbean, key
issues confronting policy makers in the 21st century are: regional
cooperation on immigration, national security, trafficking in
persons, reintegration of deportees, disaster preparedness, the
spread of HIV/AIDS, and individual rights.

The IOM/UNHCR Regional Seminar seeks to intensify dialogue and
cooperation on these issues and to strengthen Caribbean capacities
to manage mixed migratory flows within a human rights framework to
maximize the positive effects of migration.

Supported by the US State Department Bureau of Population,
Refugees, and Migration (PRM), the gathering is a follow-up to
IOM/UNHCR Joint Regional Seminars held in Barbados in 2003, The
Bahamas in 2004 and Trinidad and Tobago in 2005, as well a 2006 IOM
Regional Seminar in Curaçao.

For more information please contact:

Frantz Celestin

Westin Casuarina in Grand Cayman

Tel: 1.345.945.3800

or

Niurka Piñeiro

IOM Washington DC

Tel: +1.202.862.1826 ext 225

E-mail: "mailto:npinerio@iom.int">npineiro@iom.int