CONFERENCE STATEMENT

REGIONAL NGO WORKSHOP

Addressing Women Migrants Rights Through CEDAW

27-29 November 2006, Bangkok 

We, the participants of the Regional Workshop on Addressing Women Migrants Rights Through CEDAW organized by UNIFEM’s Asia-Pacific and Arab States Regional Programme on Empowering Women Migrant Workers in Asia, all civil society organizations, migrants’ trade unions and organizations, as well as human rights institutions, working to promote the human rights and well being of all women migrants, affirm that women migrants’ rights are human rights.

These human rights have long been established in the core international human, migrant and labor rights instruments, particularly in the second most ratified instrument, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Women’s rights have long been grossly violated in all stages of migration. Over the last decade, the CEDAW Committee has consistently acknowledged and concluded that these violations persist.

We, therefore, reaffirm our commitment to actively work for and promote the cause of the all migrants.

We reaffirm and reiterate our call for the immediate ratification and effective enforcement of Human Rights Instruments and Agreements on Migrant Workers.

We shall continue to diligently monitor and advocate for their implementation by all State Parties.

Recognizing CEDAW as the second most ratified instrument, we shall continue to monitor and advocate for States Parties to honor and abide by their obligations under CEDAW and other international human rights instruments.

We shall continue to urge States Parties to pursue consistent and continuous efforts towards policy, legislative and administrative measures aimed at eliminating all forms of discrimination against all women migrants.

Specifically, we call on States Parties to:

1. Recognize the economic contributions of all women migrants in both countries of origin and of destination;

2. Ensure their rights by recognizing domestic work as work, including in labor legislation;

3. Adopt state measures to protect migrants, including those in irregular situations, against all forms of discrimination and violence, particularly those that are gender-based;

4. Recognize and adopt preventive measures against the particular vulnerabilities of migrants in irregular situations;

5. Protect their rights to appropriate, timely and gender-sensitive information and services, including those on health and reproductive health care;

6. Recognize and facilitate their participation in the political and electoral processes in their countries of origin;

7. Guarantee the availability of and their access to timely and effective redress mechanisms and legal remedies;

8. Adopt government-to-government agreements, including standard employment contracts, that protect their rights and well being;

9. Eliminate in both sending and receiving countries such slavery-like conditions and practices as oppressive working conditions, forced labor, debt-bondage, recruitment agency training and holding camps, etc.;

10. Adopt effective measures to regulate, monitor and prevent the exploitative migration-related practices in the private sector, e.g., recruitment, training, remittance and lending agencies, etc.;

11. Adopt measures to ensure the effective reintegration of all returning migrants, and;

12.  Create alternatives to migration, e.g., alternative skills training, self-employment, local job creation, support for enterprises.

Furthermore, we urge the CEDAW Committee to adopt a comprehensive General Recommendation 27 that reaffirms and reinforces all the rights of all women migrants.

Finally, we recommend and commit to pursue the country and regional strategies adopted by the Conference workshop in plenary session.