Publications on Migrants

Migrant women human rights defenders include women, girls, and gender-diverse persons of all ages who promote and protect the human rights of people on the move, whether they are migrants themselves or not, regardless of their migration status, and irrespective of whether they self-identify as a woman human rights defender.

This policy brief explores the ways in which being a migrant accentuates the risks of women and girls to various forms of gender-based violence at all stages of migration and examines how this has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The brief concludes with a set of recommendations on how to reduce the risks of gender-based violence and improve the provision and coordination of essential services for women and girls.

The 2009 Human Development Report Overcoming Barriers: Human Mobility and Development, made the case that human mobility not only contributes to improving the lives of migrants and their families, but is a driver of development in countries of origin and destination. It also proposed a package of reforms to enhance the development gains of human mobility. Human Mobility, Shared Opportunities: A Review of the 2009 Human Development Report and the Way Ahead looks at new patterns of human mobility, reviews progress made on recommendations in the previous report, analyses emerging challenges and sets out next steps.

This decision tree helps organizations working on violence against women migrant workers decide when and how to best collect data on women migrant worker’s experiences of violence and their access and use of relevant services. These organizations include service providers, policymakers, national statistical offices, and development partner agencies. This decision tree guides data collectors through the various considerations, viable options, and alternative data sources for obtaining information without jeopardizing participants’ safety or the data’s integrity.

The report presents an overview of migration in Asia and the Pacific. It discusses the Global Compact for Migration (GCM) implementation in the context of the indicative clusters of GCM objectives presented in General Assembly resolution 73/326. It also discusses short- and long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on migrants and their families, and recommends future collaborative action by governments and relevant stakeholders in order to achieve safe, orderly and regular migration in Asia and the Pacific.

This technical resource builds on the recommendations and guidance in the Handbook and provides specific guidance to ensure the concerns and interests of women migrant workers are incorporated into National Action Plans on Ending Violence Against Women. It is noted that all of the recommendations in the Handbook for National Action Plans on Violence Against Women apply; this document serves only to focus on women migrant workers’ rights and needs. As such, in each section, considerations for addressing women migrant workers’ needs in national action planning are described. The recommendations in each section are also aligned with the Essential Services Package for Women and Girls Subject to Violence and the 16 Essentials for Quality Multisectoral Service Provision to Women Migrant Workers Subject to Violence.

UNAIDS calls on governments to live up to their 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development commitment to leave no one behind by strengthening social protection systems, including the set of minimum standards known as “floors”, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and by enhancing the responsiveness of social protection systems to people’s basic and changing needs and vulnerabilities—in particular for people living with, at risk of and affected by HIV, including key populations and young people, women and girls, people living with disabilities, refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and populations in a state of food insecurity or malnourishment and in humanitarian settings. These groups of people are among the high-risk populations for COVID-19 and are especially vulnerable to economic, spatial and social inequalities and disruptions in the provision of, and effective access to, basic services and social assistance.

This brief highlights the impact of COVID-19 on migrants, refugees and displaced people and offers some policy recommendations to ensure their health and well-being are protected in COVID-19 prevention, response and recovery.

This brief explores the multi-dimensional impact on women migrant workers, highlighting that COVID-19 is not only a health crisis but also a crisis with detrimental effects on freedom from violence and harassment, employment, income, social protection, access to services, and access to justice.

The COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affects women migrant workers across Asia and the Pacific, in particular those with irregular migration status. Concluding the four-part guidance note series, this paper focuses on the emerging impacts of the pandemic on women migrant workers and recommendations to support governments, donors, civil society organizations, employers and the private sector in addressing those impacts. Essentially, more assertive and collective efforts are needed to ensure migrant-inclusive and gender-responsive measures in preventing further spread of the virus.