Panaji, Dec 2 (IANS) Immigration officials from Europe and Asia have suggested several ways to tackle increasing illegal migration across the globe, including a joint study between the continents and stronger laws to check the trend. At the same time they said that “migration should be made simple”.
Delegates attending the eighth Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) conference on Management of Migratory Flows here put forth a three-pronged approach after discussing various issues and complexities surrounding illegal migration.

The three vital recommendations to tackle the problem suggested by ASEM during the two-day event includes a joint study between Europe and Asia to understand the etiology of the phenomenon and ways to curb it, G. Gurucharan, chairman of the conference, said Wednesday.

The meet also recommended starting two pilot projects vis-a-vis dealing with standardisation of skills training, third party independent certification and uniform acceptance of skill standards between any two countries and another project on ways to organise legal migration.

“Joint awareness campaigns, migrant resource centres, stronger laws for combating illegal migration, use of technology, undertaking various capacity-building measures and enhancing bilateral co-operation were some of the suggestions made by the members,” Gurucharan said.

The conference also sought to dispel the myth that migration is a handicap faced by European countries alone.

“Migration should be made simple. As far as job-oriented migration is concerned one of our main thrusts was the elimination of the role of middlemen from the process,” Gurucharan said.

The ASEM, over the last 12 years, has been the main multilateral channel for communication between Asia and Europe in the area of migration through the conferences of the directors general of immigration. About 30 delegates from 12 Asian countries and 30 from 18 European countries attended the eighth ASEM conference that ended Wednesday.