Making Migrants’ Vulnerability History (GCM Side Event)
On March 12, the Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants (APMM) hosted an online forum entitled Making Migrants’ Vulnerability History: Highlighting and addressing living and working vulnerabilities of migrant workers.
Three guest speakers from the countries of South Korea, New Zealand and Bangladesh, who work in trade unions and NGOs, were invited to speak about the challenges confronting migrant workers and their organisations’ actions. A representative from the International Labour Organization was also present at the forum to give a reaction to the speakers’ presentations.
Udaya Rai, Chairperson of the Migrants Trade Union in South Korea, shared the country-specific impacts COVID-19 has on migrant workers. COVID-19 brought new aspects of discrimination against migrants. Udaya pointed out that discrimination against migrants takes multiple forms, some explicit and others implicit. Explicit forms of discrimination occur in exclusion from government COVID mandates and xenophobia hate speech. At the same time, implicit discrimination can be seen in migrants’ unequal access to COVID information and unaccommodating government policies. Based on these existing issues, the Migrants Trade Union is pushing for institutional and legislative changes to safeguard the human rights of migrants.
Udaya and the Migrants Trade Union are also committed to tackling the continued existence of sub-standard migrant living conditions. Some migrants live in temporary buildings such as plastic houses or containers with a lack of access of electricity or water. Due to the makeshift nature of these accommodations, air-conditioning and heating are often not provided, making migrants’ conditions during the summer and winter worse. Basic hygenie facilities are often not provided within the vicinity of the accommodations but outside. Employers and accommodation providers exploit migrants by overcharging and profiting from these inhumane living environments. Udaya shared with the forum the indident of the tragic death of a migrant worker, whose death can be attributed to the poor living environment and the lack of care from employers. Employers are more concerned with the workforce, rather than having considerations on migrants’ rights. Udaya argued that the Ministry of Labour should shoulder some responsibility in this case as poor law enforcement resulted in the inhumane, harsh living conditions that migrants find themselves in.
Dennis Maga of FIRST Union, New Zealand, explained the basic situation of migrants in his country. He pointed out that, while New Zealand has a relatively comprehensive legislature structure in defending the rights and entitlements of migrant workers, significant challenges remain to defend the inalienable rights of migrant workers further. Migrants are still susceptible to experiencing multiple types of exploitation. Instances of non-payment of migrant workers’ wages and welfare costs, and non-compliance of employment contracts and leave agreements still pose a significant risk on migrants. Employers circumvent or outrightly refuse to fulfil their legal obligations to migrant workers in some instances. In light of this, the New Zealand government is tackling the issue in three approaches. Prevention of exploitation by eliminating potential environments and settings where migrants could be exploited. Protection of temporary migrant workers that enables them to leave exploitative contracts. Enforcement of relevant laws to serve as a deterrent for employers to infringe on the rights of the migrants. These approaches can be seen in the criminalisation of exploitative employer and the inclusion of migrants in wage subsidies triggered by the pandemic.
FIRST Union contributes to this process, as Dennis explained to the attendees, of the Union’s role in organising migrant workers and lobbying for government initiatives that protect migrant rights and improve migrants’ conditions, especially in the context of COVID-19. Trade unions and labour unions in New Zealand, representing the voices of migrant workers, have the collective bargaining power to force employers and government to acknowledge that migrant workers are equals to other citizens, and lobby relevant bodies to act as such in the aspect of wage subsidies. Employers find to practise exploitation can be imprisoned for up to seven years and fined up to 100,000 NZ Dollars. FIRST Union lobbied an agreement with the New Zealand government to protect exploited migrant workers from deportation and negotiated the Fair Labour Migrant Agreement.
Pervez Siddiqui of Films4Peace Foundation from Bangladesh discussed insights into Bangladesh’s situation in respect of labour migration. His picture of labour migration is distinct from the previous two speakers as Bangladesh is a migrant-sending country, or source country, instead of the mainly migrant-receiving South Korea and New Zealand. In Bangladesh, migrant remittance is a crucial economic development source, with approximately 13 million migrant workers working abroad. COVID-19 has a disproportionate impact on the availability of non-domestic working opportunities, as labour migration decreased by more than 70%. For those who still work abroad, significant impacts are manifested in the high number of confirmed cases and deaths amongst Bangladeshi workers, compounded by the discrimination in testing and welfare. The economic impacts of COVID led to a reduced income for migrant workers, who also faces increased xenophobic stigmatisation in host countries. Travel disruptions lead to the potential possibility of forced deportation and imprisonment due to violation of border control protocols. Worse still, migrants stranded receive little or no support from the governments of home and host countries. Pervez highlighted the vulnerability of migrants in all stages of labour exports, ranging from pre-departure deceptions, instances of on-route abuses and exploitations, as well as the treatment migrants face in host countries upon arrival.
Anna Olsen, a technical specialist from the International Labour Organization (ILO), responded to the speakers’ presentations by using compelling data, stating that migrant workers’ rights are a global struggle, hence the extra importance of GCM. Given the context of COVID-19, some pre-existing problems in migrant workers’ rights were exacerbated. She also argued that the problems of migrant workers might also have a gendered aspect due to migrant’s gendered nature of work. Anna saw COVID-19 as an unfortunate demonstration of the lack of safety and health protection for migrants, calling for destination countries to act. Furthermore, cooperation between the different sectors of society is needed to protect migrants, aiming to reach those who are “invisible” due to status insecurity. When asked, she acknowledged that governments should address migration more comprehensively by tackling the main causes of migration, such as poverty and climate change.
During the open forum, participants expressed concerns and raised questions to the speakers. Some of these were:
In Taiwan, even the pandemic situation is relatively low and calm, but the government doesn't include migrant workers in the list of priority for vaccination, so most of the migrant workers are still vulnerable for COVID-19. We need to demand the government to put migrants in the priority list
I think the presentation of Udaya & Pervez is reflective of current migrants situation specially those coming from poor countries. NZ is at this point a better 'destination' but there are also so many issues and concerns on Immigration that should also be looked into.
How do you see migrants and advocates pushing for a GCM that actually addresses fundamental reasons for forced migrations - poverty, inequality, climate change - at home countries? especially with the voluntary and cherry-picking nature of governments both in sending and destination countries?
Dr. Nenette Motus, Regional Director in Asia and the Pacific for the International Organization for Migration, was also present at the side event and left a message at the chat box:
Thank you very much and appreciate all the presentations. These are critical information that we all should be aware of and will inform our collective advocacy with Governments, partners and all stakeholders including the UN Migration Networks particularly as we will continue to live in a COVID world for the foreseeable future. We will also continue our advocacy for migrant-inclusive vaccination in our region.
After the brief open forum where the importance of vaccine equality and accessibility for migrants is stressed, the online forum is concluded. The increased awareness of the individual situations and measures to protect migrants in the pandemic world would undoubtedly assist the awareness and the capability for attendees to further the cause of GCM and migrant rights in the challenges ahead.