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On 18 December, International Migrants Day, Anti-Slavery
International is calling on governments to take action to protect
migrants' rights.
The International Labour Organization estimates there are 120 million
migrant workers and their families in the world today. Anti-Slavery
International's new report, The Migration-Trafficking Nexus:
Combating trafficking through the protection of migrants' human
rights, draws attention to the fact that both regular and irregular
migrants are exposed to trafficking, forced labour and other serious
forms of exploitation.
The demand for migrant workers is steadily increasing, particularly
in developed countries where people are living longer and birth
rates are falling. Anti-Slavery International's report notes that,
according to the International Organization for Migration, European
Union countries will need 68 million more foreign workers by 2050
just to stabilise the existing workforce.
Rather than recognise this demand and facilitate regular migration,
many governments are making their immigration policies more restrictive.
This reduces opportunities for regular migration and makes migrants
more vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking.
No major receiving country, including the UK, has ratified the
1990 UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant
Workers and Their Families. Article 21 of the 1990 Convention
states that migrants should have protection against the confiscation
of their identity documents, but there is no legislation in the
UK which does this. The removal of migrants' documents is frequently
used to pressure workers to accept bad pay and conditions. Kalayaan,
an NGO that supports migrant domestic workers in the UK, found that
an average of 49 per cent of domestic workers registered with them
had their passports taken by employers.
"The promotion of regular migration is an essential element
of any counter-trafficking policy. It is vital governments develop
transparent, standards-based migration policies that benefit migrants
as well as sending and receiving countries. Key to this is ratifying
the 1990 United Nations Convention on the Protection of the
Rights of All Migrant Workers and their Families," Mary Cunneen
Director of Anti-Slavery International says.
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