The RSO’s research agenda is primarily housed in the Irregular Migration and Regional Priorities programme area, but research takes place across all RSO priority areas of countering trafficking in persons, people smuggling and transnational crime.
The Bali Process region continues to see mass movements and displacement as a result of natural and humanitarian disasters including ongoing armed conflicts, persecution and human rights violations, climate change, and political and economic pressures. These factors represent drivers of irregular migration—defined as the movement of persons that takes place outside the laws, regulations, or international agreements governing the entry into or exit from the state of origin, transit, or destination. While these drivers are not new to the Bali Process region, they are continuously evolving.
These adverse drivers and structural factors have exacerbated the vulnerabilities of hard-to-reach and marginalised communities including asylum seekers, refugees and stateless people—propelling them to undertake irregular migration journeys as a last resort in search of safety, protection, and livelihood opportunities. Such journeys create opportunities for exploitation by traffickers and smugglers.
The RSO aims to enhance understanding across the Bali Process membership of the drivers and consequences of irregular migration. This work area takes an evidence-based, practical and a whole-of-society approach to explore knowledge and policy gaps in thematic areas including civil registration, natural and humanitarian disasters and irregular labour migration. Gender and human rights are cross-cutting themes across all of this work.
