Inter-Parliamentary Union assembly to tackle migration, refugee protection

GENEVA, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Parliamentarians from more than 137 countries are meeting here next week to work on parliamentary inputs to the United Nations-led reforms on the rights and protection of migrants and refugees, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) said Tuesday.

"Nearly 258 million people, about 3.4 percent of the world's population, are living outside their countries of birth," the IPU said in a statement.

The IPU said that in 2016, UN members determined that the existing global migration regime offered insufficient protection of migrants and refugees human and socio-economic rights, and called for two global compacts to strengthen them.

These are the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration, and the global compact on refugees.

The IPU will hold a panel on March 25 with William Lacy Wing, director general of the International Organization for Migration, the UN's migration agency, and UN Human Rights Commissioner Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, on migrants and refugees.

The 138th Assembly of the IPU will take place in Geneva, from March 24 to 28. Enditem