Human Rights Education Associates

Labour Migration in a Globalised World: Obtaining Rights, Development and Governance

19 March-29 April 2014 (E07914) | Closed
Instructor: Patrick Taran

Migration in search of decent work, sustenance for families and decent living conditions has been going on for centuries, driven by absence of prospects for employment—even survival—in homelands, forced displacement, and environmental degradation. Terms of disparities in demography, development, and democracy (“3Ds” as termed by the Global Commission on International Migration) have also been used to characterize reasons for migration. The major part of migration today has work or employment as outcome, regardless of reasons for moving. The ILO estimates that 105 of the 214 million people resident outside their country of birth or citizenship in 2010 were economically active—meaning employed, self-employed or otherwise engaged in remunerative activity. That comprises most adults of working age-women and men. Taking account of an estimated one dependent per economically active migrant means that some 90 per cent of global migrants are migrant workers and their family members. International labour and skills mobility is set to increase significantly in the next two decades. Global shortages of 40 million high-skilled workers in the North and 45 million vocationally skilled in the South are projected by 2020. More than fifty developing and developed countries have reached zero population growth fertility rates, meaning declining work forces now or very soon. Several countries are currently seeing work force declines of 500,000 to a million workers a year. Regulating labour migration, protecting migrants and ensuring that migration saves development in industrialised countries as well as contributes to development in the South are governance issues of the century.

Women and men migrant workers face high risk of exploitation and rights abuses during recruitment and transit and when living and employed outside their home country. Many persons migrating, especially in lower or medium skilled situations, get misleading information about conditions and benefits of employment abroad, and incur high migration costs as result of excessive (often illegal) intermediation fees and debt burdens. In destination countries, they may be given contracts with inferior conditions and lower wages that what was promised. Generalized problems for many migrants in destination countries include poor working conditions, confiscation of travel documents, virtual absence of social protection, and denial of basic rights in the workplace. Current headlines tell of discrimination, social exclusion and vicious xenophobic attacks against migrants in countries in all regions. There are few mechanisms for access to justice. Those most at risk are low skilled migrant workers, female migrant domestic workers, and those in irregular status.

This course is intended to better equip all those working on migration with critical knowledge of the evidence base, the normative and policy frameworks, and practical measures to obtain rights protection and governance on labour migration.  And ultimately to ensure that migration contributes to socio-economic development, social cohesion and human well-being.