Chile on migrant workers

Committee: OAS
Topic: Migrant Workers
Country: Republic of Chile
Delegate: Heather Reynolds

Chile is a long country on the west side of South America that does not have a lot of migrant workers. Because of the very small amount of migrant workers the issue of migrant workers is not big in Chile. Although it does not have a lot of migrant workers it has a lot of migrants. There are a lot of people moving to and from Chile to live for a long period of time and not a lot of people just going to work.

In 1824 the government of Chile enacted a law to encourage Europeans to establish factories and to populate sparsely inhabited southern areas. This started migration to Chile. By 1854 the census showed 20,000 foreigners living in Chile, mostly German. In 1882 the establishment of Immigration Agency in Europe brought 3,000 Europeans to live in Chile.

There is not much information on Chile’s status on migrant workers, right now they are mostly concerned with migrants who live in their country not just work. Most of the foreigners who live in Chile are from; Argentina (48,176), Peru (37,860), Bolivia (10,919), Ecuador (9,393), Spain (9,084) which are all nearby. There are 184,464 foreign-born people living in Chile which is 1.2% of the total population.

Because Chile is not very effected by migrant workers they only have a few policies and they do not take much action for the issue. But because of Chile’s economic growth, political stability, and increased immigration are spurring the development of a new migration policy.

Chile purposed actions with Peru that they thought necessary. They purposed; to make pronouncements and public declarations about migrant problems, to set up specific intervention mechanisms in woman's pay in Central Unions and base unions, and to advise technically migrant workers.

Chile attended the Cavacas conference July 1-3, 2007, it was the 7th South American conference on migration. Other countries that attended were; Argentina, Columbia, Bolivia, Suriname, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay. The conference was concerning the entering into force of the International Convention on the protection of all Migrant workers and their families’ rights.

Chile signed the UN Migration Convention September 24, 1993 and ratified it March 21, 2005. They made reservations to article 22, paragraph 5 of the convention which it considered to be inapplicable to Chile. Chile said they will consider the provisions of article 48, paragraph 2, to be fulfilled under the terms of international conventions to avoid double taxation that either have been entered into or will be entered into in the future.

www.summit-americas.org/migrant%workers/migrant-workers.html
portal.unesco.org/she/en/ev.php-URL_ID=3693&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC%URL_SECTION=201.html
www.unesco.org/most/migration/convention
www.migrationinformation.org/Resources/chile.cfm