The African Regional Organisation of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC-Africa, www.ituc-africa.org), representing over 18 million workers across 52 African countries, addresses this 2026 International Migration Review Forum at a time when human mobility is being shaped not by choice but by crisis.

As we convene here in New York, ITUC-Africa raises several urgent and interlinked issues that governments, stakeholders, and social partners must confront—both within this Forum and beyond. These include the impact of insecurity and conflict on forced displacement, the deepening crisis of inequality and austerity, the erosion of social protection systems, the continued loss of resources through illicit financial flows, and migration governance frameworks that too often sideline workers’ rights and voices.

Migration today reflects the fractures of our global system—fractures defined by injustice, economic imbalance, and a failure to deliver dignity and decent work for all.
Migration must never be reduced to a problem to be managed. It is a human reality to be governed with dignity, rights, and solidarity.