23 May 2016- The Philippine Permanent Mission in Geneva asserted that migrants’ right to health is not suspended during large movements of people in a roundtable discussion organized by the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) entitled “Addressing Health Vulnerabilities of Migrants in Large Migration Flows,” held at the Centre International de Conférences Genève on April 25.

Minister Enrico T. Fos, Philippine Mission’s focal person on migration, stressed that “everyone, migrants included, has the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.” He said that this right is “enshrined in international human rights law, more particularly in Article 12 of the International Convention on the Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.”

He also mentioned that while states have their own national health systems with different capacities, access to health service of migrants, regardless of the states, should be guaranteed. He added that states should be provided with capacity building assistance and develop programs to assist them in delivering health services to migrants in large migration flows.

The panel experts include Hellenic Republic’s General Secretary of Public Health Dr. Yiannis Baskozos, IOM’s Senior Regional Migration Health Advisor for Europe Ms. Roumyana Petrova-Benedict and Médecins Sans Frontières’ Humanitarian Affairs Advisor Ms. Linn Maria Biorklund. END