Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Quito (Fides Service) - Migration and Development is the theme of an Andes-Hispanic Symposium, 14-17 February in Quito, organised by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Ecuador, Caritas Spain, Migration and co-development project, Migration plan. Participants will include delegations from the Bishops’ Conferences of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, Peru and Venezuela and international organisations, as well as special guests such as Cardinal Stephan Fumio-Hamao President of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerant Peoples.
The Symposium aims to: “discuss the relation between migration and development: impact on social, cultural and economic development of countries of origin and hosting countries; increase awareness of governments of the hosting regions and countries on the problem of migration and the need for suitable legislation and policies; discuss certain aspects of migration: internal migration in the region and emigration to developed countries, conflict in Colombia and its effects on neighbouring countries, international co-operation and co-development; discuss the importance of the media and its impact on public opinion in questions of migration; identify challenges and pastoral action for the Catholic Church”.
Besides discussing migration in the Andes region of America and in the countries of the European Union as a new challenge for the Church in the context of globalisation participants will share pastoral experience and theoretical reflection.
Speaking with Fides, Bishop Miguel Irizar of Callao President of the Peruvian Bishops’ Commission for Human Mobility, who will give a conference on “Family and Migration”, recalled the profound negative impact the migratory phenomenon has on families: “Very often it is the mother who leaves the home to provide a better future for the family with the hope of gradually re-uniting it one day in the new place of residence. Unfortunately not many mothers can keep their promises because most work under precarious conditions. Many fall victim of human trafficking and suffer terrible forms of exploitation” said the Bishop voicing particular concern with regard to “migrant mothers who live separated from children and relations for many years. It is impossible to describe the feelings of a mother forced to live away from her children and her home. The same is true for the children who suffer greatly without the presence and love of the mother. Not rarely children grow up traumatised with a sense of being abandoned and suffer from solitude all through life”. When poverty strikes a family the children suffer most: their right to life and development is endangered. “In a family affected by migration, the child is the most vulnerable member becoming either an emigrant minor or being deprived of the presence of mother or father or both”.
(RZ) (Agenzia Fides, 8/02/2005 - 32 righe, 328 parole)
