Practices by Stakeholder 2

Type of Practices by Stakeholder: 
States
Description: 

Respect for international law, including international human rights law and labor law

Respecting, protecting, and fulfilling migrants’ human and labor rights promotes their empowerment. This can be done by:

  • Ratifying relevant international and regional treaties;
  • Adopting or reforming domestic laws, as necessary, to implement obligations relating to international law, including human rights and labor law;
  • Complying with international obligations in practice, at the national and local levels;
  • Addressing and mitigating barriers that inhibit migrants’ ability to enjoy their rights;
  • Investing in training, monitoring, and enforcement to promote compliance.

Specifc legal and policy actions that promote migrants’ resilience

A range of other actions, including adoption of specific legal provisions, can promote empowerment. Such provisions include:

  • Clarifying the duty of care and other obligations of employers, recruiters, and placement agencies, including during crises, towards migrant employees in national employment and other relevant laws;
  • Upholding migrants’ right to associate, organize, and join unions or associations;
  • Upholding the right of migrants and civil society to establish, register, and operate organizations and associations.

Ethical and fair recruitment processes

States can establish measures to help ensure that employers, recruiters, and placement agencies respect human rights, and refrain from practices that could potentially put migrant workers and their families in a situation of vulnerability. Measures to put into place ethical and fair recruitment processes include:

  • Guidance on the responsibility for recruitment fees, including prohibition on migrants paying these fees;
  • Recruitment and employment accreditation and integrity certification schemes;
  • Promoting and engaging in international recruitment certification schemes;
  • Creating excellence lists or rating systems for recruitment agencies;
  • Establishing feedback and complaints mechanisms for migrant workers;
  • Instructions on when recruitment and placement should halt deployment of workers because it is too dangerous and when to resume such activities;
  • Adopting laws that impose criminal, civil, or administrative penalties on illegal or unethical recruiters.

Laws on duty of care for employers, recruiters, placement agencies, and through supply chains

States can clarify the duty of care toward migrant employees in national employment law, including for employers, recruiters, and placement agencies. Such laws could include:

  • Guidance on the application of the duty of care principle for migrant populations;
  • Guidance on the application of the duty of care principle when individuals are posted on overseas assignments;
  • Guidance on whether and under which circumstances the duty of care principle extends to employees’ family members;
  • Available remedies when the duty of care principle is violated;
  • Penalties to be applied when duty of care obligations are breached.

Measures to monitor employment conditions

States can monitor employers’ compliance with employment laws and standards to identify abuses and undertake necessary reforms. State should monitor employment conditions to identify and address:

  • Charging unreasonable employment related costs that leave migrants in debt;
  • Withholding of passports and other identity and travel documents;
  • Level of freedom and mobility provided to migrant workers, including domestic workers;
  • The availability of occupational health and safety standards to ensure emergency procedure information is made available to migrants.

Portability of social contributions and pensions

Migrants’ social contributions and pensions are ofen not portable; the inability to gain access to pensions and social contributions may make migrants unwilling to leave a host State to seek safety, or adversely affect return, reintegration, or remigration. Efforts to ensure portability include:

  • Establishing measures through which employee contributions to pensions and other social contributions (sometimes referred to as defined contributions) are made mobile in the event migrants leave a host State in the context of a crisis;
  • Bilateral agreements between host States and States of origin that specify ways to access pensions and social contributions if migrants leave the host State in the context of a crisis;
  • Allowing access to pensions and social contributions from outside the host State;
  • Offering assistance to repatriate pensions and social contributions;
  • Creating funds that provide support for retirement as well as financial education, housing, and health care when migrants return to States of origin;
  • Ensuring migrants in an irregular immigration status can benefit from portability arrangements.

Status-free migrant identity cards

People may be required to present identity cards to receive assistance and services during crises but furnishing such cards may be an obstacle for migrants without authorization to reside or work in a host State. States of origin and host States can make special provisions for
migrants in an irregular immigration status to obtain identity cards that do not specify their immigration status in the host State. This could be done by:

  • Authorizing consular posts to issue cards (States of origin);
  • Verifying residence through documents that evidence utility and rent payments or affidavits;
  • Laws and policies that attest to the validity of alternative documents to obtain identity cards and the presentation of such identity cards to obtain assistance and services. Identity cards could include:
  • A biometric identifier, such as a photograph or fingerprint;
  • Name of the person;
  • Basic demographic data, such as gender, height, and date of birth;
  • Address in the host State;
  • The authority that can verify the issuance of the card;
  • A hologram or other feature that deters counterfeiting.

Measures to facilitate financial services

States of origin can support the development of financial products that meet migrants’ needs by encouraging their development, establishing State-led insurance schemes, and offering products directly to migrants. This may include:

  • Funding research and supporting pilot programs to test ideas and prove viability of financial services and products;
  • Supporting mechanisms for employer contributions to savings, pension, and insurance programs for migrants in regular or irregular immigration status;
  • Mandating or incentivizing product purchase or use;
  • Purchasing or subsidizing migrant insurance policies;
  • Acting as risk carrier (i.e. by undertaking or bearing risks);
  • Facilitating cross-border accessibility;
  • Regulating distribution to facilitate the viability of distributing to migrant communities;
  • Regulating documentation requirements for accessing financial products and services to make these more accessible to migrants, including migrants in an irregular immigration situation;
  • Mandating insurance schemes and packages for migrants that entitle members, at a minimum, to evacuation and medical assistance in the event of a crisis;
  • Requiring migrant workers traveling abroad to have insurance, which covers risks, such as death, disability, and evacuation costs. Responsibility for purchasing the insurance may fall to the employer, recruitment or placement agency, or employee.