Protecting migrants

Globally, there are 67.1 million domestic workers, of whom 11.5 million are international migrants. Around 8.5 million or 73.4% of all migrant domestic workers are women and nearly a quarter of them are from the Asia Pacific. Just a few days ago a second Sri Lankan woman who was sentenced to death in the Middle East returned home thanks to the intervention of the Government and while this effort must be lauded, especially since it was done with minimum publicity, there are still safeguards that can be put in place to protect people. 

All States have the sovereign right to develop their own policies on labour migration. International labour standards and other international instruments, as well as non-binding guidelines, play an important role in shaping policies that are fair, effective and coherent.

Domestic workers remain excluded, in total or in part, from the coverage of labour law, and hence are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Additional law and policy challenges relate to the situation of migrant domestic workers, as the latter are at the cross roads of two sovereign countries which often have divergent interests and policy objectives. 

Addressing these challenges requires targeted legislative and policy initiatives by both countries of origin and destination for migrant domestic workers. Governments use a variety of institutional arrangements to actualise the principles and stipulations enshrined in their foreign employment policies. These include setting up labour desks at international airports, introducing complaint mechanisms, appointing labour attachés and establishing pre-departure training, welfare funds, rehabilitation centers and employment offices for returnees.

These arrangements are sometimes ineffective owing to budgetary constraints that restrict the ability of countries of origin to set up consular representations abroad with the capacity to follow through on the policy, lack of coherence among line ministries responsible of different aspects of migration such as between ministries of foreign affairs and ministries of foreign employment, the absence of bilateral labour agreements (BLAs) or memoranda of understanding (MoUs) to extend the application of these policies to a foreign country, and a general focus on placement rather than protection. 

Where BLAs and MoUs are in place, they facilitate labour market access rather than provide protection to workers. Also, BLAs do not specifically consider gender, use gender-neutral terminology or address the specific vulnerability of female migrant workers. Bilateral agreements frequently include a model employment contract which regulates some aspects of employment (e.g. contract period, travel expenses, wages, accommodation, medical care and annual leave) but these typically fall short of international labour standards and do not necessarily have the force of the law. Model contracts are negotiated with particular countries of origin, each resulting in a different wage level. This creates wage gaps and discrimination in treatment between workers of different nationalities.

Adequate institutional capacity and inter-ministerial coordination (especially between the ministry of labour and the ministry responsible for foreign employment) is essential to protect citizens working abroad. To facilitate coordination between these two ministries and other relevant stakeholders, migration is mainstreamed into the work of national committees on human trafficking, or national women’s commissions. These commissions are policy platforms bringing together all the relevant stakeholders to identify policy problems and corresponding solutions in a concerted manner. These mechanisms are only effective to the extent that they reflect the priorities of migrant domestic workers. The participation of workers’ organisations in these platforms is instrumental in channelling those priorities.