Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration
A/RES/73/195
Objective 8: Save lives and establish coordinated international efforts
on missing migrants
24. We commit to cooperate internationally to save lives and prevent migrant deaths
and injuries through individual or joint search and rescue operations, standardized
collection and exchange of relevant information, assuming collective responsibility
to preserve the lives of all migrants, in accordance with international law. We further
commit to identify those who have died or gone missing, and to facilitate
communication with affected families.
To realize this commitment, we will draw from the following actions:
(a) Develop procedures and agreements on search and rescue of migrants,
with the primary objective of protecting migrants’ right to life, that uphold the
prohibition of collective expulsion, guarantee due process and individual
assessments, enhance reception and assistance capacities, and ensure that the
provision of assistance of an exclusively humanitarian nature for migrants is not
considered unlawful;
(b) Review the impacts of migration-related policies and laws to ensure that
these do not raise or create the risk of migrants going missing, including by
identifying dangerous transit routes used by migrants, by working with other States
as well as relevant stakeholders and international organizations to identify contextual
risks and establishing mechanisms for preventing and responding to such situations,
with particular attention to migrant children, especially those unaccompanied or
separated;
(c) Enable migrants to communicate with their families without delay to
inform them that they are alive by facilitating access to means of communication
along routes and at their destination, including in places of detention, as well as access
to consular missions, local authorities and organizations that can provide assistance
with family contacts, especially in cases of unaccompanied or separated migrant
children, as well as adolescents;
(d) Establish transnational coordination channels, including through consular
cooperation, and designate contact points for families looking for missing migrants,
through which families can be kept informed on the status of the search and obtain
other relevant information, while respecting the right to privacy and protecting
personal data;
(e) Collect, centralize and systematize data regarding corpses and ensure
traceability after burial, in accordance with internationally accepted forensic
standards, and establish coordination channels at the transnational level to facilitate
identification and the provision of information to families;
(f) Make all efforts, including through international cooperation, to recover,
identify and repatriate to their countries of origin the re mains of deceased migrants,
respecting the wishes of grieving families, and, in the case of unidentified individuals,
facilitate the identification and subsequent recovery of the mortal remains, ensuring
that the remains of deceased migrants are treated in a dignified, respectful and proper
manner.
Objective 9: Strengthen the transnational response to smuggling of migrants
25. We commit to intensify joint efforts to prevent and counter smuggling of
migrants by strengthening capacities and international cooperation to prevent,
investigate, prosecute and penalize the smuggling of migrants in order to end the
impunity of smuggling networks. We further commit to ensure that migrants shall no t
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