PBI-Mexico: “The dignity of people is beyond any border”

On December 18, International Migrants Day, PBI-Mexico tweeted: “In Mexico and the world, ensuring the dignity and #HumanRIghts of people means stopping the criminalization, persecution and attacks against those who migrate and against the defenders of human rights who accompany them.”

PBI is also part of the Cantabrian Coordinator of NGO for Development, an autonomous network of non-profit organizations.

Yesterday, that network stated: “We open the borders diligently to all the goods that maintain the consumption demanded by the neo-capitalist system, but we close them, regardless of the deaths and suffering that this causes, to the people who have consequently been stripped of their livelihoods.”

The full statement also notes: “And we also know that 90% of these causes [of forced migration] (extreme weather events due to climate change, wars fomented by the greed of natural resources, etc.) are the product of our lifestyle.”

Additionally, this past June, PBI signed this joint statement that expresses concern about the “militarization of borders, particularly in the United States, Mexico and Guatemala.”

That statement also highlights: “There are hostilities, harassment, surveillance, defamation and aggressions against human right defenders, shelters and spaces supporting migrants, even during the pandemic.”

Earlier this year, we at PBI-Canada posted: Transnational Institute report highlights Canada spends 15 times more on border militarization than climate financing.

That article featured a report by the Transnational Institute that found Canada spent an average of $1.9 billion a year (over the years 2013-18) on the militarization of its borders while only contributing $149 million a year over the same period on climate financing to mitigate the impacts of climate change that drive forced migration.

Earlier this week, we also posted: Human rights violations and ecological consequences deepen as borders become more militarized.

That article amplified George Monbiot’s recent commentary on the ecological impacts of border walls. It also noted Mexico has deployed 10,000 troops on its southern border, Guatemala has put 1,500 police and military personnel on their border, and Honduras had deployed 7,000 police and military on its border “to disperse a large contingent of migrants”.

We commented that these deployments can have multiple impacts, including aggressions against human rights defenders and social movements, sexual violence against women and girls, and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples from their lands.

#DiaInternacionaldelMigrante #InternationalMigrantsDay