Migrants’ Right to Family Life: Toward Migration That Keeps Families Together
Side Event during Second Asia-Pacific Regional Review of Implementation of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM)
Last February 5, a side-event co-organized by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), UN WOMEN, and APMM was held during the Second Regional Review of the Implementation of the GCM in Bangkok, Thailand. The side-event was focused on migrants’ right to family life.
Pia Oberoi, Senior Adviser on Migration for the United Nations Human Rights Office Asia Pacific facilitated the side event. According to Oberoi, the right to family life and to form a family is a universal right held by migrants and migration policies must take this into account. Oberoi added that the GCM has outlined a series of member state commitments to uphold the right to family life for migrants and their families, including protecting family unity, preventing family separation, facilitating family unification or reunification and ensuring the best interests of children. Objective 5 of the GCM particularly outlines commitment related to providing pathways that uphold the right to family life.
Child Refugee Experience: The Story of Mai and Billy
Two child refugees, Mai and Billy, spoke at the side event and shared their experiences and hopes.
Mai is a child from a minority group in Vietnam. At the age of 8, she was forced to come to Thailand with her parents, separated from her siblings who could not come with them. Now Mai is 16 years old and has lived in Thailand for 9 years.
In Mai's early days in Thailand, her parents were detained at the Immigration Detention Centre, while she was placed in a shelter for children and families. She said, "being arrested and detained, made me feel like I was separated from my family once again, after already being separated from my siblings." While separated from her parents, Mai always felt worried because she could not communicate with them at all. When Mai was finally able to reunite with her parents, she was very happy and hoped to never be separated again. Mai wants all children to receive care and protection, and child refugees to not to be separated from their families.
Billy is from Ethiopia, because of the tragedy that befell his family, he had to leave his country and come to Thailand alone with the help of his uncle. Billy had never travelled far or abroad before. When he arrived in Thailand, he did not understand the language and had difficulty communicating, while his uncle could not be contacted. Billy finally got help after he went to the UNHCR office that he found online.
Billy was very worried about the migration detention. In addition, Billy had to struggle to live day by day, he could not go to school, could not work, and only relied on help from some organizations to survive. He said, "If I need to talk to someone about my situation, I don't have family members or anyone close, I don't know anyone to talk to, so I have to talk to myself alone".
According to Billy, there are compelling reasons that make children and young people leave their country. If they could choose, they would not want to leave their homes. Children in such conditions need protection, education, access to appropriate and sustainable economic opportunities, and the right to not be subjected to detention. Their rights as human beings must be respected.
International Human Rights Law and Standards related to the Right to Family Life
During the side-event, Rasika Jayasuria, a Migration Policy and Human Rights Consultant, expounded that the right to family life is enshrined in international human rights law through both general instruments - like the Declaration on Human Rights and the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - and also through specialized treaties such as the Children's Convention and the Migrant Workers Convention. The right to family life is interdependent with a number of fundamental human rights which rightfully complement more specific rights such as the rights to form a family, to marry, and to choose a spouse without discrimination, as well as the rights to family unity and to family reunification, which are particularly relevant when families are separated by migration policies.
Challenges Faced by Migrant Workers
Jaya Anil Kumar, a senior manager for research and advocacy of Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics (HOME) in Singapore, talked about some policies that may prevent migrant workers from enjoying the right to family life. Kumar describes the tiered migration system in Singapore, and explains that low-wage migrant workers are not allowed to apply for their family members to come to Singapore to work or to study. Thus there is a permanent level of family separation, at least while they are working as low-wage migrant workers.
Some labor laws do not provide guarantee of home leave or the right to return home. This allows employers to subject workers to labor abuses, especially migrant domestic workers who are often faced with refusals to return home, unilateral contract extensions, restrictions on rest days and holidays, and confiscation of personal items. These things greatly hinder migrant workers from communicating with other foreign workers and with their families. In addition, restrictions from the governments are also extended when migrant workers wish to marry a local resident and form a family in Singapore.
Ivan Delvin of KARAMAY in Malaysia outlined that as migrant workers, members of the LGBTQ+ community confront the same challenges and vulnerabilities. However, when it comes to the right to family life, the traditional concept of family has become a major challenge for LGBTQ+ couples. In the Philippines, he said, LGBTQ+ couples are not accepted, and it will be very hard for them to set up a family and live in peace when they go home. He expounded that, “as many of us are temporary workers, low-wage migrant workers - like domestic workers, fishers, and factory workers, our savings are not enough to buy a house. And law is not friendly to us, law on migrants and family even excluded us”.
In some countries, genders outside the traditional male-female binary are considered illegal and immoral, forcing many of LGBTQ+ people to hide their relationship for fear of retaliation, discrimination, physical attacks, and the possibility of losing their jobs. The legalization of same sex marriage in Thailand is somehow a good news as people can choose to marry and stay in Thailand. However, as migrant workers who are often faced with strict visa regulations, they cannot stay in Thailand forever. Moreover, their main priority later on is to return home to their families.
Moving Forward
The side event concluded with the hope that this discussion will be the beginning of joint advocacy in the region. Family is always an important aspect when people migrate, forced to leave their country due to political and socioeconomic circumstances such as lack of job opportunities, landlessness, climate change, conflict, and others. Right to family life must be upheld because family is one of the most fundamental support that migrants need to have when they are confronted with economic and sociocultural shocks abroad. In light of temporary labor migration, statelessness, marriage migration, and increasing rates of displacement of women and children, among others, the right to family has to be ensured for everyone regardless of migration status, race, age, and gender.
