RABAT, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- Over 150 countries around the world formally adopted on Monday the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.
The adoption was made at the opening session of the UN Intergovernmental Conference on Migration in the Moroccan city of Marrakech.
The Global Compact on Migration was agreed upon by the member states of the United Nations on July 13, 2018.
The document is the first-ever inter-governmentally negotiated agreement to cover all dimensions of international migration in a holistic and comprehensive manner.
Speaking at the opening of the conference, the UN Secretary-Genral Antonio Guterres said that more than 80 percent of the world's migrants move between countries in a safe and orderly way but unregulated migration bears a terrible human cost.
More than 60,000 migrants have died on the move since 2000, he noted, stressing that this is a source of "collective shame, and of course behind every number is a person, a woman, a child, a man, who simply dreams for what anyone of us dream, opportunity, dignity, and a better life."
He insisted that all human beings must have their human rights respected and their dignity upheld.
The compact lays out a cooperative framework that is comprised of 23 objectives with each objective containing a commitment and a range of actions considered to be relevant policy instruments and best practices.
