GENEVA, 19 March 2013 (ICMC) - As one out of every 33rd person in the world today is a migrant – more than any other time in history – the United Nations Secretariat this month displays art work portraying the stages of hope and suffering that migrants undergo on their journey to a new life.

Titled Via Crucis del Migrante, the exhibition by Ecuadorian Sigifredo Camacho’s, held at Geneva’s Palais des Nations during the 22nd session of Human Rights Council, aims to bring attention to the suffering that comes with human mobility. Organized with support from the International Catholic Migration Commission, the exhibit runs from 4 to 22 March 2013.

Camacho’s oil paintings highlight the fear, individual and family sacrifices, and the hope that fuels migration. Inspired by the 14 stages of the cross, they synthesize key moments in the life of migrants, as it is marked by suffering, and can often lead to death. They picture the hope, loneliness and pain migrants experience as they move away from their homes.

And yet, many suffer both on the journey to a better future and after reaching their new homes, even though the 215 million migrants around the world contribute to peace by bringing people together.

During the exhibition opening ceremony, hosts Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, Ambassador Luis Gallegos Chiriboga, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Ecuador to the United Nations, and H.E. Archbishop Tomasi, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, all highlighted the human, societal and development benefits of migration.

“They contribute to economic growth and development, enrich the culture of any given society, and bring people together of different faith and backgrounds,” Archbishop Tomasi said.

Camacho’s own emigration to Italy served as an inspiration to his work. A country of emigration, transit and immigration, Ecuardor saw its inhabitants in the 1970s migrate to Canada, the United States and Venezuela. In the 1980s, most of them went to the United States, and at the end of the 1990s, they began migrating to Europe, mainly Spain and Italy. The number of Ecuadorian migrants went from 3,972 in 1998 to more than 480,000 in 2011, according to Spanish Government figures.

Ambassador Gallegos called for greater cooperation among countries of destination and of origin to better protect the rights of migrants and their families, emphasizing that "if capital and goods can circulate freely around the world, human beings should be all the more entitled to move from one place to another.”

By Vanessa Matyas in Geneva/lb

Photocredit
© Sigifredo Camacho / March 2013
© ICMC/ A.Morales / March 2013
(Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva)