UN Special Rapporteur calls for robust labour frameworks to protect rights of migrant workers regardless of status

NEW YORK (17 October 2023) – The labour and human rights of migrants is among the defining issues of our era, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Felipe González Morales, said in his last report presented to the UN General Assembly.

“There are over 280 million migrants worldwide. Labour migration has played a central role in the growth of the global economy,” González Morales said. “Longstanding structural drivers of migration for the purposes of work, such as inequality and lack of economic opportunity, remain persistent alongside new drivers such as climate change.”

While the report recognises promising practices in different countries and regions towards ensuring the labour and human rights of migrants, it highlights serious remaining challenges and obstacles faced by migrant workers. These include but are not limited to multiple cross-cutting and intersecting forms of discrimination; differential access to decent work as compared with nationals or citizens in countries of employment; little to no access to social protection systems, adequate housing, health care and justice; barriers in exercising their freedom of expression, assembly and association; and restrictions to their right to form and join trade unions.

“Many temporary migration schemes or programmes bear inherent restrictions which routinely push migrant workers into a state of precariousness and insecurity and irregularity,” the expert warned.

Migrant workers must be able to access decent working conditions. All migrant workers, by virtue of their human dignity, are protected by international human rights law, without discrimination, on the same footing as nationals and citizens, regardless of their migratory status or situation, González Morales said.

“I urge States to establish new mechanisms and permanent pathways and extend domestic labour protection to all migrant workers in countries of employment,” he said.

The Special Rapporteur urged States to implement “firewalls” between public services and immigration authorities to ensure migrants are not discouraged from gaining equal treatment before the law, and access to health care, adequate living standards and social protection for themselves and their families.

He also urged States to pay special attention to the participation of migrants in decision-making procedures and the establishment of strong and effective labour inspection systems to prevent, investigate, prosecute and sanction human rights abuses against migrant workers.