..Press Release................................ UNESCAP News Services

Date 24 January 2006
Press Release No: N/03/2006

Focus on migration in special issue of Asia-Pacific Population Journal

Bangkok (United Nations Information Services) – “Migration is the critical population issue of our time”, states Ronald Skeldon, Professorial Fellow in Geography, University of Sussex, United Kingdom in a Viewpoint article published in the Asia-Pacific Population Journal, December 2005 issue.

Recent trends in international migration in Asia and the Pacific, migration trends and patterns in South Asia, social issues in the management of labour migration, impact of migrant remittances, child migrants and children of migrants in Thailand , are among various issues addressed by eminent migration experts in the December 2005 issue of the Journal .

Published three times a year by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) with financial support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the Asia-Pacific Population Journal is a highly respected publication, in which leading population experts share their opinion and action-oriented research findings and provide clear policy recommendations regarding population and development issues in the region.

The Journal , including the December 2005 special issue on migration is available online, in full-text and for free at www.unescap.org/esid/psis/population/journal/index.asp

Subscription to e-alerts is possible from the above-mentioned URL.

Migration “remains the most complex and intractable of the population variables from both an analytical and a policy point of view”, Ronald Skeldon said.

“The situation of children of migrants in Thailand has not received the attention it warrants from government policy makers, government and programme planners, international organizations and social researchers”, Jerrold W. Huguet, private consultant, Bangkok and Sureeporn Punpuing, Associate Professor, Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol Universitey state in their article, which reviews the scant knowledge about children of migrants and migrant children in Thailand, tackles school enrolment and birth registration issues and gives practical policy recommendations to improve the situation.

Equally stimulating, the article entitled “Raising Our Awareness: Getting to Grips with Trafficking in Persons and Related Problems in South-East Asia and Beyond” by Phil Marshall, Senior Advisor, United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking, challenges the status quo. “Despite unprecedented growth in programmes and policies to combat trafficking in persons, the problem is generally believed to be getting worse. It is therefore timely to review the overall impact that those programmes are having, and, in particular, the way they are conceived”, the author states, highlighting important problems in the anti-trafficking response.

For further information, please contact:

Mr. David Lazarus
Chief, United Nations Information Services, Bangkok
Tel: (+662) 288 –1862; Fax: (+662) 288-1052
E-mail: unisbkk.unescap@un.org

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