In a classroom, a girl holds a tablet and wears a headset.

Migrants

Protect
NOT Marginalize

Background

International migration has traditionally been discussed primarily in terms of its socio-economic costs and benefits. Increasingly, however, the human cost is coming into focus.

The scale of international migration has substantially increased in recent years and has become a truly global phenomenon with more than 280 million people estimated to live outside their country of origin.

International migrants at mid-year 2020

281M total estimated international migrants:
15% of which below 20-years old, 73% of working age, 12% 65-years and older.

58.7M in Northern America — 86.7M in Europe
85.6M in Asia — 14.8M in Latin America and the Caribbean
25.4M in Africa — 9.4M in Oceania

International migrant stocks are estimates of "the total number of international migrants present in a given country at a particular point in time"

Source - IOM

Who is a migrant?

The UN Migration Agency, International Organization for Migration (IOM), defines a migrant as any person who is moving or has moved across an international border or within a State away from his/her habitual place of residence, regardless of:

the person’s legal status
whether the movement is voluntary or involuntary
what the causes for the movement are
what the length of the stay is

Spotlight: Basanti Tamang

Basanti left her home in Nepal to work as a housemaid in Lebanon. Upon returning home, she found that the earnings she sent home had been spent, and she faced negative attitudes. After years of struggle, she found the “Future We Want”, a reintegration programme for returned women migrant workers by UN Women and the IOM. The programme helped Basanti become financially independent and launch her own business.

UN in Action

Economic, social and cultural rights

Issues related to the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights are particularly crucial for many migrants. Very often, they are confronted with severe discrimination in housing, education, health, work or social security.

Laws discriminating against non-nationals, along with programmes and policies that fail to address their specific needs and vulnerabilities, often result in migrants and their families being unable to access basic services or only being able to do so at levels that do not meet international human rights standards.

For migrants in an irregular situation, their vulnerability is compounded because access to remedies is often unavailable as a result of their status.

Discrimination against migrants

In many cases migrants are well integrated into the economy and society of the country of destination. However, those working in the informal sector and those in an irregular situation, are often among the most vulnerable.

Migrants in an irregular situation tend to be disproportionately vulnerable to discrimination, exploitation and marginalization, often living and working in the shadows, afraid to complain, and denied their human rights and fundamental freedoms.

A human rights approach to global migration governance is needed to ensure the protection of human rights of all migrants and their families.

A Day without Migrants

How would a day without migrants look like?

IOM - UN Migration

UN Action

Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by all UN Member States.

Reducing inequality is the tenth of the 17 goals, with the promise of safe migration included in SDG Target 10.7. Reducing inequality and ensuring no one is left behind are integral to Agenda 2030.

Global Compact

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (A/RES/73/195) is the first intergovernmental agreement, prepared under the auspices of the United Nations, to cover all dimensions of international migration in a holistic and comprehensive manner. It was adopted at an intergovernmental conference on migration in Marrakech, Morocco on 10 December 2018.

Migration and human rights law — International Convention

While States may deny a person entry to their territory, or expel, or remove migrants in an irregular situation, everyone living within a State’s territory, irrespective of his or her immigration status, is entitled to general human rights guarantees. A State must ensure that all migrants on its territory are able to exercise their economic, social and cultural rights.

Migrants arriving irregularly in a new country are often detained in administrative centres or in prisons. Although the deprivation of liberty should be a last resort under international human rights law, migrants are often detained as a routine procedure and without proper judicial safeguards.

What does it mean to be stateless?

Everyone has the right to say #IBELONG. Millions of stateless people around the world have no nationality. They are invisible and often aren’t allowed to go to school, see a doctor, get a job, open a bank account, buy a house or even get married. You can support today. Take action

UNHCR - the UN Refugee Agency

Overcrowded immigration detention centres often have poor access to healthcare, inadequate food, sanitation or safe drinking water, and a lack of separate sanitation facilities for men and women. Equally, there is an increasing tendency to criminalize migration offences (as opposed to treating them as administrative offences) which has, in some cases, resulted in violations of migrants’ rights.

The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families provides guidance for human rights safeguards, which address the specific situation of migrant workers and their families.

Durban Declaration and Programme of Action

The Durban Declaration recognized that xenophobia against non-nationals, including migrants, constitutes one of the main sources of contemporary racism and that there are frequent and widespread human rights violations against members of such groups.

Human rights mechanisms

Human rights mechanisms, such as the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants and the Committee on Migrant Workers, have been clear in stating that although countries have a sovereign right to determine conditions of entry and stay in their territories:

countries have an obligation to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of all individuals under their jurisdiction, regardless of their nationality or origin and regardless of their immigration status.

Where are we?

Sustainable Development Goal 10 (SDG-10)

The promise of safe migration in SDG Target 10.7 is crucial to reducing inequality and to the 2030 Agenda's promise to "leave no one behind".

Yet, measuring safe migration is extremely challenging. Currently, the only evaluation of this goal is SDG Indicator 10.7.3, the "number of people who died or disappeared in the process of migration towards an international destination."

The IOM’s Missing Migrants Project (MMP) collates data upon which SDG Indicator 10.7.3 relies. This is the starkest display of unsafe migration:

more than 40,000 deaths have been documented since 2014 and in 2021, 2,023 migrant fatalities were recorded worldwide.

The MMP records initiative was developed in response to the multiple deaths and disappearances of migrants identified along migratory routes around the world, and continues to expand and grow in an attempt to document the true number of lives lost during migration.

The MMP’s work is aimed at ending one of the great political failures of our time, and at advocating for safe and humane legal migration routes.

The MMP hosts the only global, open-access compilation of data on incidents involving migrant deaths and disappearances, updated biweekly, and also provides extensive analysis of key trends and thematic issues.

As few official sources collect data on migrant mortality, and even fewer on deaths during the migration process itself, MMP data collection represents a timely and innovative approach to documenting hard-to-access populations. [source]

Fight COVID-19 Stigma and Discrimination Against Migrants

IOM - UN Migration

COVID-19 impact

Responses to COVID-19 have likely increased the risks of migratory journeys by pushing people into more perilous and deadly situations where humanitarian support and rescue is increasingly unavailable. Yet data collection is increasingly difficult amid the pandemic.

Migrant workers in tourism — ethical recruitment and protection

In July of 2021, the IOM and the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance announced the launch of a multi-year partnership aiming to promote ethical recruitment and the protection of migrant workers in the tourism industry.

The partnership will harness the multi-stakeholder model of IOM’s IRIS: Ethical Recruitment global initiative to promote regular pathways for migrant workers and protect them throughout the labour migration process. It will target key migration corridors in the Latin America region, as well as between East Africa and select States of the Gulf Cooperation Council.