Vietnam - While the spotlight continues to fall on the risky journeys migrants make to Europe, migrants are also vulnerable to wars, natural disasters and pandemics during their journey.

With this in mind, IOM Viet Nam this week holds a two-day regional workshop on protecting migrants in times of crisis in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS). The workshop is co-hosted with Viet Nam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and brings together government officials from the GMS countries of Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Thailand, and Viet Nam.

There are approximately four million migrants in the Greater Mekong Sub-region – Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, and Viet Nam, and more than 300,000 migrants leave each year to work abroad. Migrants from the region are frequently affected by crises in countries of transit and destination such as large scale natural disasters (2015 flooding in Myanmar, 2011 flooding in Thailand), conflicts (2011 Libyan crisis, 2011 Syrian crisis), and pandemics (SARS, avian flu).

As migration flows in the GMS are mostly of irregular and unskilled labour, migrant vulnerabilities are further exposed and exacerbated when a crisis occurs. David Knight, Chief of Mission for IOM Viet Nam noted: “Inadequate attention has been paid to the protection of migrants in times of crisis. Non-nationals, especially migrant workers and their families, often receive little attention by governments already under pressure to respond to a crisis and these migrants may not be properly accounted for in humanitarian response mechanisms.”

Funded by the US Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), the workshop will share lessons learnt from past crises involving intra-GMS and extra-GMS migration, and will discuss UN High Level Dialogue follow-up action to establish the ‘Migrants in Countries in Crisis’ (MICIC) Initiative. The workshop will hopefully bring attention to the gaps in migrant protection and highlight migrants’ specific vulnerabilities exposed in the event of a crisis.

For further information please contact David Knight, IOM Viet Nam at Tel: +844 38501810, Email: dknight@iom.int