Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque re-elected to UN migrant rights body

The Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh Md Shahidul Haque has been re-elected as a member of the UN Committee on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, or CMW, with the highest number of votes secured by any candidate.

He is known as an international expert on migration and has worked at the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and was the chair of the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD).

The foreign secretary received 46 out of 51 votes and will serve as an independent expert in the CMW for a four year term from 2018 to 2021.

His re-election marks the second time a Bangladesh national has been a member of the CMW.

Fifty-one states have joined the International Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (ICRMW) and elected seven experts for the CRW.

Candidates from Albania, Sri Lanka, Columbia, Azerbaijan, Senegal and Niger have also been elected.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina proposal for a Global Compact to curb illicit trafficking of migrants by creating safe, orderly and regular migration systems was accepted at the UN General Assembly in 2016.

Since then Bangladesh has been active in the formation of the ‘Group of Friend of Migration’ at the UN.