On September 19 world leaders attending the first UN Summit on Addressing Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants, at the opening session of the UN General Assembly.
At the summit, the governments of 193 countries adopted a non-binding commitment to protecting the human rights of all refugees and migrants across the world.
The New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants commits governments to protect the human rights of all refugees and migrants. This includes measures such as promoting equal rights for women and girls, ensuring that all refugee and migrant children receive education, and preventing sexual and gender-based violence.
The declaration also states that countries which are rescuing, receiving and hosting large numbers of refugees and migrants should also receive adequate support.
"This was the very first migration summit, it was an opportunity for UN member states to get together. We have poor countries which have huge proportions of refugees being sheltered in their countries at present and wealthier countries in the global north which have relatively low numbers of refugees and migrants in their countries, and which have the ability to increase their responsibility-sharing," Ryan said.
"Oxfam very recently released a piece of research demonstrating that the six wealthiest economies host only nine percent of the world's refugee population. At the summit there was an opportunity for them to increase and really share responsibility for refugees and migrants," Ryan said.
"However, we saw very little action, and we saw some really negative rowing-back on human rights language that has been hard-fought for the last 15 years, especially around things like protection of the rights of the child," Ryan said.
"We believe that rich countries must urgently step up to welcome, protect and support refugees. Our research demonstrates that richer countries hold only a tiny proportion of globally displaced people and they need to act immediately to share responsibility," Ryan said.
