IOM Helps Guatemalan Migrants Returned from US and Mexico
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and
IOM have today launched a two-year Guatemalan Repatriates Project
(GRP) to provide urgently needed assistance to Guatemalan migrants
returned by air from the US and by land from Mexico.
Guatemalan returnees face significant obstacles to
reintegration, including human rights infringements, limited
economic opportunities, difficulty accessing formal education
programmes, limited knowledge of Spanish, discrimination in home
communities, restricted access to social services and credit,
psychosocial problems associated with forced return, and lack of
information about their legal rights.
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target="_blank" title="">Encuesta sobre Remesas 2010,
Protección de la Niñez y Adolescencia
The new IOM-USAID project will expand the current basic services
being provided to those arriving by air at the Fuerza Aerea Airport
and will now include assistance to those returning from Mexico
through the San Marcos land border crossing.
The assistance includes the provision of hygiene kits,
psychosocial support, legal advice, transportation to communities
of origin, and effective social and economic reintegration through
vocational training and job placement by the GRP Referral and
Opportunities Centre (CRO) in the capital, Guatemala City.
The initiative will work with companies operating in Guatemala
who are willing hire returnees, taking advantage of their skills
and availability, while assisting their reintegration.
The new project also includes public-private partnerships, which
will contribute to, develop and strengthen national migration
policies and return migration data management systems; and promote,
map and disseminate best practices.
According to IOM Guatemala Chief of Mission, Delbert Field:
"IOM's private sector strategy focuses on the socio-economic
reintegration of vulnerable migrants through the establishment of
private sector alliances and Corporate Social Responsibility
initiatives."
"This strategy will help IOM to implement sustainable
reintegration and local development projects for forced returnees
and labour migrants through joint initiatives with the private
sector, as well as expanding fundraising opportunities," he
says.
Since 2004, Guatemala has seen a yearly increase of
returnees. In 2010, Guatemala's General Directorate of
Migration recorded a total of 29,095 returns by air from the United
States, and 28,090 by land from Mexico.
IOM's Survey on Remittances 2010: Protecting Children and
Adolescents, jointly produced with UNICEF, revealed that 65.7 per
cent of Guatemalans interviewed had been forcibly returned; 42.5
per cent of them (53.1 per cent women, 46.9 per cent men and 1.7
per cent minors) said they intended to make the journey north again
within the next 12 months.
Interviews with migrants who have recently returned home
voluntarily revealed that only 7.1 per cent would consider
migrating again. The IOM Survey confirmed that the need to
search for better economic opportunities and find employment was
the driving force for 86.7 per cent of the 1.6 million Guatemalan
migrants living abroad – 97 per cent of them in the United
States.
The GRP will also identify and consolidate a network of support
services and opportunities for repatriated Guatemalans in their
communities of origin.
A full copy of the
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target="_blank" title="">IOM Remittance Survey is available in
Spanish at
"http://www.iom.int/" target="" title=
"">http://www.iom.int/.
For more information please contact:
André Lascoutx
IOM Guatemala
Tel: +502.23.14.00.00
E-mail:
"mailto:alascoutx@iom.int">alascoutx@iom.int