CHD – Trung tâm Tư vấn Sức khỏe và Phát triển Cộng đồng Tư vấn, Sức khỏe, Phát triển Cộng đồng
AEPF9 FINAL DECLARATION – 2012
Final Declaration
9th Asia- Europe People’s Forum – Vientiane, Laos
We, over 1,000 women and men, representing people’s organisations and citizens from Asia and
Europe joined together from 16th to 19th October 2012 in Vientiane, Laos at the 9th Asia Europe
People’s Forum under the title “People’s Solidarity against Poverty and for Sustainable
Development: Challenging Unjust and Unequal Development, Building States of Citizens for
Citizens”. The AEPF9 tackled four major themes, or People’s Visions, which represent AEPF’s hopes
for citizens of the ASEM member countries and the communities they live in. These are:
- Universal Social Protection and Access to Essential Services;
- Food Sovereignty and Sustainable Land and Natural Resource Management
- Sustainable Energy Production and Use; and
- Just Work and Sustainable Livelihoods.
Preceding the 9th Asia-Europe People’s Forum we held three preparatory workshops in South and
South-East Asia on our four themes. In Laos, 16 provincial level consultations were held which
contributed to the development of a draft Lao People’s Vision Statement. These brought together the
reflections, aspirations and visions of the Lao people from a wide range of mass and civil society
organisations across Lao society. They are an important contribution to future dialogues for
development and seen as part of the Laos’ commitment to strengthening partnerships for development.
At the Asia Europe People’s Forum 9 we focussed on developing strategies and recommendations to
our elected representatives in our countries, and to ourselves, as active citizens.
We met at a time of major historical importance that has brought into sharp focus the drastic
inequalities, injustices and poverty experienced by people across Asia and Europe. What is often
presented as a ‘financial crisis’ is in reality part of a series of interlinked crises – food, energy, climate,
human security and environmental degradation – that are already devastating the lives, and
compounding the poverty and exclusion faced on a daily basis by millions of women, men and children
across Asia and increasingly across Europe. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening, and
access to resources, livelihood opportunities and basic services remain grossly unequal. The ASEM9
is an historic opportunity for ASEM governments to take the timely and decisive actions needed to
address this.
There is a strong consensus among Asian and European citizens gathered at the AEPF9 that the
dominant approach over the last decades – based around deregulation of markets, increasing power of
multinational corporations, unaccountable multilateral institutions and trade liberalisation – has failed in
its aims to meet the needs and rights of all citizens. We need to go beyond an analysis and response
that focuses solely on short-term measures benefiting a few financial institutions and large
corporations. There is a deep felt need and demand for change and for new people-centred policies
and practices.
Despite the policy failures of trade liberalisation, market deregulation and privatisation, our
governments continue to ignore the growing tangible consensus for fundamental policy change.
Instead of fulfilling the needs of people and reinvigorating local economies, hundreds of billions of
Euros have been mobilised to save the banks and financial system, while essential social services
remain under-funded and are being dismantled in many parts of Europe.
Despite existing laws, regulations, standards and mechanisms, our governments have failed to
prioritise human rights, environmental security and labour rights, over the profits of companies. The
consequences of this corporate domination are experienced in the lives of millions of women, men and
children across Asia and Europe. This has led to a hollowing out of democratic accountability as elites
make decisions and implement policies with little or no scrutiny from citizens, creating the conditions for
poverty, inequality, environmental devastation and growing social unrest.
Our governments and the citizens of Asia and Europe have the responsibility to transform our social,
economic and political futures so that we can all live in peace, security and dignity. We all need to take
responsibility to work together to create and implement the radical and creative solutions needed for
people-centred recovery and change.
We therefore call upon the governments who are members of ASEM to implement people-centred
responses to the current crises in an effective and responsible manner. Urgent need must be given to
poor, excluded and marginalised people and governments must work with citizens to develop and
implement policies that will lead to a just, equal and sustainable world, and more accountable and
democratic institutions – based on respect for gender equality, our environment and our fundamental
human rights.
The AEPF is a strategic civil society gathering of Asian and European social movements fighting
poverty and inequality and working for social justice. The AEPF is grounded in the common desires of
people’s organisations and social justice networks across Asia and Europe to open up new venues for
dialogue, solidarity and action.
The following call to action is based on the recommendations from the many vibrant and exciting
events that were held throughout these four days.
Call to Action – from the 9th Asia Europe People’s Forum
The 9th Asia Europe People’s Forum, representing citizens, people and social
movements from Asia and Europe, urges ASEM and its member Governments to
recognise the following issues, priorities and to take forward our
recommendations:
1. Universal Social Protection and Access to Essential Services
Globally, only 20 percent of people have access to social protection- the coverage in nearly all Asian
countries is even lower. In Europe, the welfare state and social contract have been systematically
eroded by both national governments and European Union (EU) institutions in the name of marketdriven
policies and private profits.
Social protection and access to essential services are fundamental rights covering rights to work,
adequate food, essential services and social security. States have the obligation to actively promote,
protect and fulfil these rights. After 2015, following on from Millennium Development Goals, there is a
new opportunity for governments to legislate for a comprehensive set of transformative social
‘indispensable to a life’ policies to promote universal social protection based on human and social
rights.
A transformative social protection system is a broad package of commitments and services that
includes social security, social assistance, labour rights and social services that covers the entire
population in order to prevent and reduce poverty. It should protect individuals against risks of
impoverishment in situations of sickness, disability, unemployment, old age, high healthcare costs,
general poverty and social exclusion. It subscribes to principles of equality and non-discrimination,
fosters organic solidarity, and contributes to human security and to the common good of humanity.
A transformative and universal social protection system must be implemented together with alternative
national development strategies that restore the sovereign rights of states to chart a people-centred
development that is just, democratic, and sustainable, reversing the neo-liberal policies of liberalisation,
deregulation, and privatization.
Key Recommendations
We call on our governments to:
1. Enact legislation and secure public finance for a social protection system that is rights-based and
universal. This will enable basic social protection for all people including workers – informal and
formal, paid and unpaid, women and men, including migrants. This social protection system
covers fundamental rights vital to a life of dignity which include: The Right to Work (access to
work guarantees, living wages and decent work according to ILO core standards, full employment
with shorter working weeks), Food, Essential Services (access to universal and quality health and
reproductive health care, education, water and sanitation, energy and affordable and decent
public housing), Social Security (living pensions for the elderly and disabled, child subsidies), and
insurance with guaranteed fair/living wage (against risks of unemployment, illness and agricultural
calamities).
2. Develop adequate fiscal policies that generate sufficient domestic funds for universal social
protection. Appropriate tax regimes should effectively tax transnational corporations, rich
individuals and large landowners rather than applying regressive taxation such as VAT. Our
governments should introduce a Financial Transaction Tax, close tax havens and secret banking
and cancel odious debts.
3. Work through ASEAN to adopt a Social Agenda that will include the universalisation of social
protection and the decommodification of all essential goods and services indispensable to life.
Social protection should be under state authority and free for all people.
4. Be parties to developing and agreeing a UN Charter on the Common Goods of Humankind that
will establish the common ownership of resources, goods and services, which are essential to life;
cooperative management by the international community must be adopted.
5. Exclude TRIPS plus provisions in all bilateral/multilateral trade agreements especially provisions
on data exclusivity and patent extension because of its direct impacts on public health and
access to medicines. TRIPS plus provisions threaten and undermine governments’ authority to
use the TRIPS flexibilities allowed them in favour of providing for affordable and accessible
medicines for the majority. These flexibilities are even more important given the reality that outof-
pocket costs of medicines are increasing, with the poor in Asia often spending more than half
of their income on medicines.
6. Ratify and fully implement the UN Conventions on the Rights of Disabled People and mainstream
disability concerns into local and national economic and social development; a focus should be
placed on empowering people with disabilities and their organisations to ensure equal
participation and full inclusion in all respects of life.
7. Recognise the complex root causes of poverty and to ensure that all countries ensure that all
citizens have the opportunity to have their voices heard, opinions respected and can participate in
decision making that affects them, as well as in defining what it is those decisions need to be.
This must include children and young people and it must go further than basic adherence to
international legal instruments such as the Convention on Rights of the Child. It is critical that
mechanisms are developed and implemented to provide opportunities for true participation at the
local, national and global level to ensure that development is inclusive of all, including children,
young people and the most vulnerable. These voices must be heard to ensure a move towards
more just and people-centred services and development.
8. Ensure and guarantee quality, basic education for all and fast track affirmative actions for
marginalized children, youth and adults.
9. Promote and support literacy and respect for local wisdom as the foundation for life-long learning.
Finance fully-costed life long learning programmes that enable everyone regardless of age, sex
and ethnicity to access opportunities throughout life through formal, non-formal and informal
education.
10. Ensure quality curricula in formal, non-formal and informal education that integrates participatory
sustainable development, technical-vocational life, skills, self-determination and participation
within the framework of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Learners should have a
say on what quality learning means.
11. Enhance positive cooperation between Civil Society Organisations, Governments and the private
sector toward sustainable development.
12. Support all citizens to take part in drafting and review of national development frameworks.
13. Develop and promote adequate social protection mechanisms for indigenous peoples and ensure
their access to essential services.
14. Ensure a shift from corporate social responsibility to corporate social accountability that
emphasizes diligence with its elements of prevention, protection, prosecution and reparation
according to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
(CEDAW) for human rights violations, including gender-based impacts and violence.
15. Strengthen and implement safeguards policies and accountability mechanisms, including the
dissemination of correct and complete information, free and prior informed consent, organization
of meaningful community consultations, administer just compensation and actions that ensure the
bodily integrity and social well-being of communities, especially marginalized groups such as
women and minorities, to hold governments, corporations and international financial institutions
accountable and ensure a development towards resilient, equitable, inclusive low carbon
communities.
16. Migrants must have the right to marriage, family, culture and political participation. This includes
raising children according to their identity and culture. These rights ensure full participation in
community life. One must also be able to keep one’s identity, unlike many migration policies,
which promote assimilation.
17. The Hague Convention on child custody must be recognized by all countries.
2. Food Sovereignty and Sustainable Land and Natural Resource Management
In response to the financial, economic, and ecological crises, a new wave of land, water and resource
grabbing is occurring. Powerful international and domestic forces are pushing forward a new round of
enclosures globally for both food and non-food purposes.
In Asia, land and resource grabbing is accelerating in the name of ‘development’. There is a growing
body of evidence that these large-scale investments in agriculture and extractive industries are
resulting in a cascade of negative impacts on rural livelihoods and ecologies, human rights, and local
food security and food sovereignty.
In Europe, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), based on the international competitiveness of
European agri-business, is forcing many farmers to exit agriculture. The EU’s bio-energy policies, most
prominently the Renewable Energy Directive (RED), are diverting land used for food production for
large-scale, monoculture, agro-fuel and agro-energy crop production. The EU’s trade policy, in
particular the Everything But Arms initiative, has fuelled global land grabbing.
Banks, hedge funds and pension funds are betting on food prices in financial markets, causing drastic
price swings in staple foods such as wheat, maize and soya. This speculation on food is driving up
global food prices. Food speculation by banks and financial market traders must be regulated.
We are facing a global water crisis. Never has there been such pressure on water resources and such
water scarcity. In many countries, the water crisis is manipulated by International Finance Institutions’
(World Bank and Asian Development Bank) drive to grab water and has resulted in the takeover of
water resources and services by corporations and private companies. This situation encourages antipoor
policies, increasing the role for corporations in the water sector, and producing bigger pubic debts,
which in the end do not necessarily ensure water provision, equitable access and efficiency.
Within the social movements, food sovereignty has prevailed as an alternative to the industrial
agricultural model. Food sovereignty is based on the right of peoples to define their own food,
agriculture, livestock and fishery systems, independent of international market forces. It is called for by
farmers, peasants, pastoralists, fisher folk, indigenous peoples, women, rural youth and their allies all
over the world.
Our common vision is therefore based on the principles of food and land sovereignty. Peasants, smallscale
food producers, and rural populations should be able to decide their own development path.
Our health and the health of the earth and future generations depend on healthy soil, strong food
communities and small-scale diversified farms. There are growing movements of young farmers and
alternatives agriculture, which can provide solutions to many of the global challenges we are facing. To
support these, we should promote local food systems and strengthen networks for farming with dignity,
integrity and self-reliance.
Key Recommendations
We call on our governments to:
1. Oppose land and resource grabbing and support the Human Right to Food. Implement the
Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests.
These Guidelines are an important first step in protecting the tenure rights of small-scale food
producers and ensuring a more equitable governance of natural resources.
2. Support the on-going process at the UN level of the recognition of the Rights of Peasants.
3. Respect human rights in its trade, agricultural, energy, development, environmental, land and
water policies. The EU should investigate the impact of its trade policies, such as the Everything
But Arms agreement, which has evicted thousands of people from their land in some countries.
4. Drop the agro-fuels targets under the Renewable Energy Directive.
5. Support food sovereignty in Asia and Europe, including in the reform process of the EU’s
Common Agricultural Policy.
6. Invest in a coherent, progressive, publically funded rural development strategy. This investment
should focus on the needs of small-scale food producers, rural women, and indigenous peoples.
Local and national development plans must fully recognise the rights of local communities to
sustainable livelihoods and food sovereignty. They should protect and respect people’s access to
land, water and biodiversity. The Development Agenda must recognise that women traditionally
have skills and knowledge for livelihoods that ensure food security for all.
7. Respect the rights of indigenous peoples to their lands, territories and resources as the material,
economic, social and cultural base for their collective survival and development. This includes
the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples in decision-making processes relating to
development including the requirement for free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples
in development projects. Lastly, acknowledge the contribution of indigenous peoples in
sustainable development through their simple and low carbon lifestyles, their traditional
knowledge, indigenous techniques and innovative ways of production.
8. Regulate food speculation by banks and financial market traders as a matter of urgency. By
passing legislation to ensure that all futures contracts are cleared through regulated exchanges.
Contracts need to be brought out into the open, in the same way that shares are traded on the
stock exchange. There should also be strict limits on the amount that bankers can bet on food
prices. Caps should be set on the amount of the market that can be held by the biggest traders,
and on the amount of the market that can be held by financial speculators as a whole
3. Sustainable Energy Production and Use
The current development paradigm, characterised by overproduction and consumption without regard
to the earth’s capacity, is incompatible with long-term solutions needed to save the economy and our
planet. Governments should see the climate crisis as an opportunity to embark to a low carbon society
and enable inclusive development by promoting renewable energy access and availability to the most
disadvantaged and remote communities. To understand the cause of climate change and come up
with sustainable solutions to the problems linked with the degradation of natural resources and
increasing environmental insecurity and injustice, we need to see the connection between the climate
crisis and the way societies are organised.
Access to energy is a fundamental right and not a privilege. People must have a say in energy
governance. Justice and social transformation should be the measures for even energy distribution
between countries and within societies. Many cases of hydropower dams still show the lack of
consensus in viewing the causes of problems and the appropriate solutions needed to address energy
poverty.
Market based instruments are emerging as a new development approach which brings environmental
resources – the commons – into the current market system under the Green Economy. Payments for
environmental services and offsetting are two main ideas behind the approach. However, they would
undermine the shift to genuinely sustainable livelihoods and self-reliance of small-scale farmers and
forest communities and on the other hand delay necessary transition to a low carbon society in
industrialised nations. Other solutions proposed under the ‘Green Economy’ include those new
technologies which are unproven and unsafe, including GMOs and synthetic biology, nano-technology,
bio-fuels and geo-engineering (amongst others) which have a tendency to mainly benefit large
corporations.
In particular the carbon market established through international climate policy has led to the promotion
of projects, which do not deliver environmental and social benefits, some of them even being harmful to
local communities. Moreover, international climate policy has generated a number of false solutions
which are unproven, unsafe and unsustainable, such as monoculture plantations, GMOs, geoengineering
and massive biofuel exports / imports jeopardizing food security.
The UN has adopted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIPS) rather than
insisting that the UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest
Degradation (REDD) complies to UNDRIPs. There are remaining unresolved issues, which pose
questions on the need for REDD. REDD projects also show a tendency towards militarisation in the
implementation of projects. It is proving to become another way to pollute and negatively exploit forest
resources. Indigenous peoples often do not want REDD, they want their rights to live in and manage
forests to be upheld; REDD also fails to address climate change.
Lastly, waste generation is a result of negative resource use and waste production from individual and
business activities, as well as inadequate governmental policies. Anything that cannot be re-used,
recycled, or re-designed is pollution – a threat to human and planetary existence and a negative legacy
to future generations. Thus it must be eliminated, prevented from being produced or banned from
entering the market.
Key Recommendations
We call on our governments to:
1. To fulfil their responsibility to mitigate climate change, pay its ecological debt to poor countries
and realise fair sharing of development space, the EU should achieve a major transition to a
sustainable energy system, based on renewable energies, energy efficiency and also sufficiency,
and therefore speed up and intensify their efforts.
2. Shift the system of production and consumption oriented on continuous expansion and
appropriation of nature to a more sustainable and environment-friendly one, which fulfils the
needs of people and not corporations.
3. Ensure a political environment where people can confidently participate and discuss their ideas
for alternative energy policies and create a participative processes of energy development and
production that reflect the concerns and needs of affected communities.
4. Develop and implement effective, socially fair and just policies and measures to promote
renewable energy, in particular decentralised installations and systems, transformative
solutions to end energy poverty, as well as improved energy efficiency (in both
developing and developed countries).
5. Commit to progressing, with urgency, to a nuclear power free world. This will require
decommissioning existing nuclear power stations, stopping the development of planned power
stations and taking forward alternatives.
6. Take forward ambitious and serious thinking of how to enable and empower small and very small
power producers and to develop policies that will realise up-scaling community based energy
systems.
7. Uphold a human rights approach to the governance of natural commons, especially in terms of
allocation, distribution and resource management. Uphold the UN Resolution that states water is
a human right and not private property, not a commodity, not a tradable economic good and not
simply a factor of production. Water should not be transformed from a commons to a commodity.
8. Legislate and implement a national waste plan that will reduce waste, phase out nonbiodegradable
plastics, build infrastructures and mechanisms to reduce, re-use, re-cycle and
redesign waste. Companies and other actors that do not comply with effective and sustainable
waste management policies must be held liable or sanctioned.
9. Recognise the right of people and communities in forest areas and their capacity to sustainably
use and manage forest resources in preference to global forest-carbon schemes and
mechanisms before any development or conservation scheme is considered.
4. Just Work and Sustainable Livelihoods
Dramatic changes in the context of work and in the forms of labour and employment are happening
across Asia and Europe. Despite the differences – in particular the debt crisis in Europe and the
livelihood crisis in Asia caused by investments increasingly based on land and water grabbing – many
common features can be identified. Migration in and between countries, with a risk of trafficking, is
increasing in Asia as well as in Europe. The hopes for job and income security and sustainable
livelihoods have not materialised. Where labour has been formalised, labour standards and workers’
rights are being eroded and Trade Unions and collective bargaining are being weakened. The power
and profits of corporations are increasing. Free Trade Agreements are leading to further erosions of
workers rights’ and the dismantling of social protection. Where growth occurs it is often jobless growth.
The precarious and unprotected forms of labour which are dominant in Asia, informal, casual, contract,
and temporary employment have come to Europe. For the sake of competitiveness and in the interest
of investors, the imperative of reducing labour costs is consolidating the trend towards low-waged and
insecure employment. The race to the bottom is speeding up. Cutting costs in the public sector of
many countries is leading to decreases in jobs and in essential social services. In Europe, the crisis is
causing more unemployment, more precarious and vulnerable work, as well as cuts in wages and
pensions. Even in countries less hit by the crisis, the feeling of the majority of the population is a
growing insecurity in and of work and about social protection. At the same time, social inequalities and
disparities in wages, income and well-being are growing with a mounting number of working poor and
millionaires/’super-rich’.
This overall restructuring of labour and labour markets in different contexts makes it impossible to still
draw clear lines between formal and informal, secure and insecure, paid and unpaid work. A concept
of justice in work has to go beyond rules and regulations for waged labour and include all work outside
of the market, balance the inequalities between women and men, care work and industrial work, and
protect local communities and migrants’ rights. It is necessary to think much more outside of the box,
search for new forms of organisation and for different economic paths which head towards an economy
of solidarity, and socially, gender and environmentally just and sustainable livelihoods.
A few Transnational Corporations (TNCs) control 40 per cent of the global economy. Bilateral
investment treaties and investment chapters in the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) are part of an
architecture of impunity for transnational corporations (TNCs) and as such undermine the sovereignty
of both developed and developing countries, democratic governance and peoples’ interests. They
allow corporations to challenge national laws that go against TNCs interests. TNCs have overturned
laws and national policies including regulations to protect public services, the environment, working
conditions, labour standards and health.
Tourism is a huge industry and a key driver of globalisation. With the growth of tourism, the social,
economic, political and cultural rights of local communities are often neglected and violated, particularly
those of poor and vulnerable communities. They see their land and resources being appropriated by
the tourism industry, while they often do not have any say in the development affecting their lives.
We recognise that Trade Unions, community organisations, social movements and NGOs can join
together to develop new alliances, which can join different issues and link across sectors and between
countries. Social movements and workers’ organisations have to work with governments to develop a
people centres ASEAN social charter that can enable just work, sustainable livelihoods and universal
social protection.
Key Recommendations
We call on our governments to:
1. Ratify, if not yet ratifies, the ILO Conventions on Domestic Workers, on Migrant Workers, on the
right to organize, and right to collective bargaining , the Core Labour Standards (CLS), and
ensure that appropriate and consistent national legislation is passed and becomes a reality.
2. Recognise that all workers, irrespective of their nationality or legal status, shall have the right to
labour rights, including a right to form and/or join trade unions and collective bargaining,
consistent with the international Core Labour Standards.
3. Fully implement their commitments made at the Potsdam ASEM Labour Ministerial (September
2006) including ILO Core Labour Standards, especially in the context of continuing erosion of
formal labour rights, collective bargaining and Trade Union rights in some countries.
4. Implement more redistributive policies, including minimum wages, and a progressive tax regime
which implies an income ceiling and can decrease inequality in the context of growing inequalities
in wages, income and social security in all Asian and European countries.
5. Address the imbalance between production and social reproduction. Policies for gender equality
have to cover both the labour market and the unpaid care economy. We call on European
governments to reaffirm their commitments to affordable and accessible public services. We
condemn the on-going privatisation of social services and call for a reversal. Paid and unpaid
care and social reproductive work should be recognised as productive and valuable work.
6. Put the interests of people before corporate profit and greed. We demand the immediate halt of
negotiations for new investment agreements (BITs and FTAs), and the termination of existing
ones. We recommend governments that do not have the chance to terminate the agreements, at
the very least, to re-negotiate them and exclude investor-state dispute settlement mechanism.
We demand governments to end corporate impunity and impose binding obligations on
corporations that prioritize human, economic, environmental, labour and social rights.
7. Work with social movements and workers’ organisations to develop a people-centred ASEAN
social charter that can enable just work, sustainable livelihoods and universal social protection.
8. To recognise there are human rights abuses related to tourism, commercial, trade and industrial
activities, to strengthen solidarity with affected communities and to build alliances to advocate for
change. Governments must ensure that human rights are respected and that people can
participate in decision-making processes affecting their lives. No development must lead to
evictions or displacement of people from their land, natural resources and livelihoods, violating
their human rights. Governments must enforce adequate regulations to protect their population
against all kinds of human rights violations.
9. Ratify the UN Convention on the Protection of Rights and Well Being of Migrant Workers and
members of their families and other relevant conventions as a minimum requirement for
protecting the rights, decent work and well being of migrant workers. Recognise and protect the
rights of migrant domestic workers and provide for the protection of their labour and human rights
– in consultation with civil society and trade unions.
10. Standardize the human rights of migrant workers in regional bodies in a way that adheres to and
adds value to international human rights standards such as Convention on the Rights of Migrant
Workers and their Families, International Labour Organization, and Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. This includes a standardization of procedures and
process for labour migration to prevent discrimination based on gender, health, civil status and
nationality.
11. Articulate progressive policies on sexual and reproductive health and rights of migrants and
migrant workers, especially women, ensuring individual self-determination of body, sexuality and
mobility in the whole process of migration.
12. Ensure the right of marriage migrants to marriage, citizenship, family, culture and political
participation. This includes raising children according one’s identity and culture, instead of being
imposed an assimilation policy.
13. Recognize, respect and protect diaspora communities by establishing and institutionalizing
policies and programmes, (with regular and adequate budgets), including complaint mechanisms
and inter-country cooperation, and gender-sensitive services that can protect migrants including
marriage migrants from abuse and exploitation.
14. End the criminalisation of migrants and refugees. Implement human rights in dealing with:
children, asylum seekers, pregnant women, the elderly, people with disabilities, people with
special medical needs, or victims of trafficking. Authorities of migrants’ countries of origin shall
provide consular assistance and other appropriate support when it is requested by its nationals.
Authorities of the countries of origin shall pressure detaining countries to treat detained migrants
humanely and lawfully
15. To set up an Asia Europe Tripartite Mechanism for the preparation and development of the Asia
Europe Instrument on Migrant Workers as well as other labour related instruments and policies.
16. Abolish short-term or fixed duration employment contracts, and if still needed in exceptional
situation should be limited in their use.
17. Abolish manpower/labour outsourcing and all forms of triangular employment arrangements.
18. Recognise that human rights defenders, including CSR/TNC compliance monitoring bodies,
should issue alerts, lobby companies and governments, raise awareness among the general
population and support workers who want to advocate for their rights.
19. Recognise that trade unions and CSR/TNC monitoring bodies should be encouraged to lobby
governments to ensure that trade agreements include guarantees for labour conditions and rights
of workers. Ensure mechanisms which are mandatory, accountable and transparent, which can
complement existing law or enhance them. Develop a collaborative mechanism between all
sectors and actors.
20. When government and/or ASEAM have discussions and engagements with investors, trade
unions must always be part of the process.
The AEPF9’s participants also noted that the peace, security and people’s solidarity are the
preconditions for Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development.
Key Recommendations
We call on our governments to:
1. Develop long term solutions to promote peace, human security and sustainable development by
addressing the root causes of violent conflicts e.g. non-respect of minorities that prioritise nonviolent
means of conflict resolution, people-to-people interactions, use of international laws and
regional co-operation.
2. Recognise and address security threats both multilaterally and multi-dimensionally through the
United Nations, and adhere to principles of international law.
3. Establish an inter-regional conflict resolution mechanism to develop common visions on foreign
policy and security, based on respect for national sovereignty and human rights.
4. Fully implement UNSC Resolution 1325 that recognises women are both disproportionately
affected by conflict and key actors in promoting peace, reconstruction and reconciliation.
5. In tackling religious extremism, give special emphasis to the role of education and inter- and intraconvictional/
faith dialogues at all levels. Ensure full freedom of expression and information to
enable rational debate and understanding.
6. Enact national legislation to guarantee full and public disclosure of government defence, arms
exports and security budgets.
7. Cut military expenditure that is being funded at the expense of health and education programmes.
8. Use the Non-Proliferation Treaty as the basis of regional co-operation and take steps to
denuclearise Europe and Asia while striving for a nuclear free world.
9. Take primary responsibility to control the trade and proliferation of arms. Develop and agree
transparent and binding mechanisms, overseen by the UN, to control arms imports and exports.
10. Support of the implementation Cluster Munitions Convention. Support the clearance Unexploded
Ordinance (UXO) and the rehabilitation of affected women, men, children and communities.
11. Introduce legislation to make the European Code of Conduct on Arms Exports legally binding
(with respect to European Union member states) and take steps to negotiate a Code of Conduct
(with respect to states in Asia).
12. Support and protect survivors of the use and effects of weapons of mass destruction. Hold
companies responsible for the production of weapons of mass destruction and toxic chemicals to
account so that victims are compensated.
13. Develop and support mechanisms for trauma healing and social reconciliation as part of postconflict
reconstruction.