Freedom of Movement ‐ and its Exercise*
| Date | 01 July 1968 |
| Published date | 01 July 1968 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.1968.tb01053.x |
| Author | Walter M. Besterman |
Freedom
of
Movement
-
and
its
Exercise”
BY WALTER M. BESTERMAN
The International Year for Human Rights provides a particularly appropriate occasion
for the consideration of the rights
of
refugees, a part of the never ceasing stream of
people
-
the migrants
-
who have made the decision to leave their country and seek
a
new life elsewhere.
To these endless thousands the
Freedom
of
Movement,
one of the fundamental rights
embodied in the United Nations Declaration
of
Human Rights, is
of
paramount im-
portance. To many, the exercise
of
such freedom is the beginning
of
a new road leading
towards a better and fuller future. To others, it provides long yearned-for reunion with
their family. And, for the refugees from persecution or oppression, the denial of this
freedom has meant
-
and may again mean
-
a matter of life and death.
The painful, irrevocable, often tragic decision to leave
-
is
theirs.
To
make it become
a reality
-
depends
on
others.
The Intergovernmental Committee
for
European Migration
(I CEM)
and several Volun-
tary Agencies have assumed direct responsibility for refugee migration. They jointly
carry this responsibility out by assisting those men, women and children who seek to
obtain the benefits
of
unimpeded travel with the intention
of
settling down permanently
in a country which they intend to call their own. That voyage into the future does, in
fact, provide the one and only solution to their problem.
The problem of refugees is a continuing one as it has been for centuries. It is the duty
*
In the
first
week of June
1968
the International Council of Voluntary Agencies
(ICVA)
held
its general conference in London. The
ICVA
1968
Conference was dedicated to the theme ‘Human
Needs and Social Justice’. Apart from the problems on development
aid
and the role voluntary
agencies are playing in improving living and working conditions in countries in development,
the Conference expressed its deep concern about the divided world which every year
is
creating
thousands of refugees, for whom satisfactory solutions have to be found.
As
Mr. Wilhem
S.
Bge,
Chairman
of
this
ICVA
Conference expressed in his opening address that priority, in this year
dedicatcd by the United Nations to Human Rights, must be given to humanitarian assistance
to
those
who
have lost one of the most basic
of
human rights
-
the right
to
live in
one’s
own
Country.
Mr. Walter M. Besterman, Deputy Director of
ICEM,
gave
an
address on the Freedom of Move-
ment, to
this
important meeting of International Voluntary Agencies, and has written the above
article based on his speech for the September issue
of
‘Migration News’,
a
publication of the
International Catholic Migration Committee.
I7
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