BANGKOK - Southeast Asia needs legal channels of migration to help curb human smuggling, the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) said on Thursday, days after it urged efforts to avoid a repeat of this year's disaster when hundreds of refugees were lost at sea or died in jungle camps.
The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations established an economic community last month to free up capital and trade, but made limited provision for labour movement even though the region has millions of migrant workers.
"There needs to be more legal channels of migration, so that we don't end up unintentionally subsidizing the smugglers," IOM Director General William Lacy Swing told reporters.
"If the visa regime makes it impossible for people to get to the jobs that are there to be filled, then obviously they will go to smugglers and pay a lot of money."
Thousands of migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar have fled persecution and poverty in recent years, putting their lives in the hands of human smugglers to reach countries with better prospects in Southeast Asia and beyond. (Courtesy of AsiaOne Asia News)
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