UN Committee on Migrant Workers p1

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UN Committee on Migrant Workers

Written submission to the CMW day of general discussion on protecting the rights of all migrant workers as a tool to enhance development

"Realizing the importance and extent of the migration phenomenon, which involves millions of people and affects a large number of States in the international community…Convinced that the rights of migrant workers and members of their families have not been sufficiently recognized everywhere and therefore require appropriate international protection"

(Preamble to the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families)

1. Introduction
Amnesty International welcomes the first Day of General Discussion organized by the Committee on Migrant Workers. The theme of "protecting the rights of all migrant workers as a tool to enhance development" is timely, chosen as it has been to enable the Committee to provide substantive input to the High Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development, due to be held at the 61st Session of the General Assembly in 2006. Amnesty International welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this discussion and to emphasise our belief that sustainable development can only be based on the respect, protection and fulfilment of the human rights of all people. This discussion is extremely opportune because, while migration is increasingly a subject of debate within the international sphere, all too often it is framed solely within a discourse of control, containment or even criminality. Yet migrant workers play an essential role in the development process, including through filling employment and skills gaps in destination countries, and sending much needed remittances back to countries of origin.

Migration per se is not and should not be seen as a problem which requires a solution; it is an inevitable part of the human condition. It is important to recognise, as the General Assembly recently has, that migrant workers have positive impacts on development on both the countries they leave and those to which they migrate.(1) In framing the discussion on migrant labour and development, it is essential that the rights of all migrant workers and their families are placed at the centre. This is all too often not the case, an omission which Amnesty International believes has created a climate in which human rights abuses by governments and employers against migrant workers are too often overlooked, or even accepted. In the organization’s view, if the human rights of individual migrants are not placed at the forefront of any analysis of, or proposed engagement with, the phenomenon of migration, it is likely that resulting migration policies will lead to human rights abuses; including as a result of the individual being viewed as a commodity, or a unit of labour. A consequence of which could be that the individual’s rights would be placed secondary to the requirements of the host country or country of origin, or the industry that requires his or her labour. While the benefits to both migrants themselves as well as to the countries of origin and destination are an important positive consequence of international migration, Amnesty International is firmly of the view that migrant workers should not be looked upon solely as "agents of development", and accordingly encouraged or even coerced to migrate in conditions which may violate the inherent dignity of the human person, and at the expense of other fundamental human rights.

Building on the Millennium Declaration, the UN Secretary General recognised the interrelation of human rights, development and security in his report "In Larger Freedom", noting that "we will not enjoy development without security, we will not enjoy security without development, and we will not enjoy either without respect for human rights."(2) Experts in human development increasingly recognise that human rights should be both the means and the end of development.(3) Recognition that this extends to the rights of migrant workers is essential to ensure that increasing economic development is not based on exploitation, discrimination, abuse and the deepening of inequality.

The Migrant Workers Convention ("the Convention"), one of the seven core international human rights treaties, places the human rights of all migrant workers and members of their families at the centre of the phenomenon of migration and emphasises the fundamental principle of non-discrimination in this regard. Article 7 provides that state parties should apply all the provisions in the Convention without discrimination. Article 64 provides that States Parties should "promot[e] sound, equitable and humane conditions in connection with international migration…due regard shall be paid not only to labour needs and resources, but also to the social, economic, cultural and other needs of migrant workers and members of their families." While the pivotal principles of equality before the law and of non-discrimination permit for distinctions to be made between certain groups, these exceptional distinctions must serve a legitimate objective and must be proportional to the achievement of that objective.(4) Crucially, they must not interfere with the right of the individual to respect for his or her fundamental human rights.(5)

The following sections in this submission highlight major issues of concern to Amnesty International in relation to the protection of migrants’ rights in the context of development as illustrated by recent research the organization has conducted into the situation of migrants in different regions of the world.