Innovative approaches to protect the rights of women migrant workers and tackle forced labour: Lessons from the Work in Freedom programme (2013–23)

This brief provides a short summary of the Work in Freedom programme outreach and activities conducted to tackle forced labour and trafficking with the key lessons it generated over the ten-year period (2013-23) of its implementation.

After 10 years of operation, the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)-funded Work in Freedom programme has amassed a rich set of lessons that can help guide future efforts on key global priorities such as promoting women and girls’ rights conducting responsible business and tackling forced labour and human trafficking. This brief provides a short summary of the Work in Freedom programme, its activities and the key lessons it generated.

 

No easy exit – Migration bans affecting women from Nepal

The ILO undertook this study with the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women (GAATW). It explores whether Nepal’s age ban deterred younger women from migrating for domestic work and improved working conditions for women migrant domestic workers over 30 years of age. It also explores to what extent the age ban and other bans have had unintended consequences for women, including an increase in irregular migration and trafficking in persons. Finally, it highlights steps the women themselves propose be taken to improve their migration experiences.

 

Media representation of women migrant workers: A critical look

The study reviews how overseas women migrant workers are characterized in print and electronic media in accordance with gender, class and geographic stereotypes. It critically assesses how women's multiple roles as workers, earners, investors, mothers and daughters, etc. are overshadowed by simplistic narratives focusing on exploitation and victimhood.

This study is based on migration-related news published in four widely circulated national English and Bangla dailies and reports aired on three television channels. The study is an in-depth analysis of the news articles and videos published and diffused between 2015 and 2021. Findings depict a majoritarian bias focusing on individual cases illustrating highly abusive women’s labour migration experiences to attract readership and viewership. Yet, reporting on how women’s labour migration also emancipates them in the context of work, family and social lives was found to be rare, thus leaving and cultivating a common perception conflating all women’s migration with abuse. Considering that such narratives reinforce a false perception that the solution to such abuses is to ban women’s migration, the analysis concludes that while human rights violations faced by migrant workers must be addressed, coverage exclusively focusing on abuses is socially dis-empowering to women and more nuanced reporting on women’s labour migration is needed.

 

Working Paper on Operational Parameters to Assess Fair Recruitment Practices

These parameters list a series of questions and issues that should be looked into in order to assess recruitment practices.

In South Asia, the pathways to jobs in domestic, garment or other similar sectors within the region or to the Middle East are intersected by various agents or contractors in an environment shaped by multiple rules and practices determining the mobility of aspiring workers especially women. The fluidity and segmentation of labour supply chains and labour regimes are such that none of the key stakeholders such as labour recruiters, regulators and even employers can guarante on their own a fair migration outcome for any workers. To do so requires understanding the specificity of recruitment processes from end to end and strong multi-stakeholder cooperation. The purpose of these operational parameters is to identify the main fields that need to be assessed and related questions when analyzing recruitment processes.

 

Rebels, victims, agents of change: The singular histories of women migrant workers

The purpose of this ethnographic study is to shed light on how women view their migration and work abroad. The findings challenge conventional narratives on labour migration of women and bring out important perspectives that invaluably inform policymaking.

The research provides in-depth qualitative data on women labour migration, free of a priori judgment in a context where such activity remains contested in many parts of society. The aim is to present on women’s migratory journeys and in the process re-visit these gender constructions, as well as the social class ranking that associates honour and rank with a specific gender order. It is an important reference for academics, activists and Government practitioners.

 

Eliminating forced labour: Handbook for parliamentarians No. 30

Effective legislation and regulations on recruitment processes, for both national and migrant workers, help to curtail forced labour and trafficking. Beyond adopting or amending legislation on recruitment, parliamentarians can request the adoption of implementing decrees and hold the government accountable for monitoring implementation. Promoting fair recruitment practices, and averting the occurrence or risk of forced labour through the recruitment process, must be a fundamental part of any forced labour prevention strategy. 

This handbook, co-published with the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), aims to help parliamentarians to make their contribution to global efforts to effectively combat the scourge of forced labour.

Ending child labour, forced labour and human trafficking in global supply chains

Promoting fair recruitment is a critical priority in the context of both international and internal migration. As discussed in PART 1, a key finding of recent ILO research is that recruitment abuses – and in particular the payment of illegal recruitment fees and related costs – are one of the main ways in which forced labour and human trafficking enters supply chains.

The adoption of laws and regulations to help ensure that workers and jobseekers are not charged recruitment or related costs, or subjected to other recruitment-related abuses – addressed in the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and international legal standards – is therefore critical to broader efforts against forced labour and human trafficking.

Reporting on forced labour and fair recruitment: An ILO toolkit for journalists

This toolkit provides information and advice to media professionals on how to report accurately and effectively on forced labour and fair recruitment. The toolkit includes the Media-friendly glossary on migration.

This toolkit is available in: Arabic, English, French, Spanish.

The toolkit has been adapted to the national context in:

• Mongolia (English and Mongolian)

• Nepal (English)

• Nigeria (forthcoming)

• Pakistan (English)

• Sri Lanka (English, Sinhala and Tamil)

• Uganda (forthcoming)

• Uzbekistan (English and Uzbek)

• Viet Nam (English, Vietnamese).

 

Click on each language to open the corresponding toolkit.

 

 

 

Promising practices for fair recruitment

This list presents a series of promising fair recruitment practices and results from a stocktaking exercise undertaken five years after the launch of the Fair Recruitment Initiative (FRI).

 

Establishment of the National Union of Malagasy Domestic Workers (SENAMAMA) 

Code of Conduct for Ethiopian Overseas Private Employment Agencies 

Recruitment of health workers through bilateral labour agreements (BLAs): Kenya and the United Kingdom 

Madagascar alignment of labour code to newly ratified conventions 

Regulation of Private Recruitment Agencies in Uganda 

Law amendment concerning management of migrant workers in Thailand 

Revision of the Law on Contract-Based Overseas Workers 

Italian National Action Plan to tackle labour exploitation, unlawful recruitment and forced labour in agriculture 

Nepal – Bilateral labour agreements include provisions related to fair recruitment  

Bangladesh – Government capacity enhanced to promote fair recruitment in bilateral negotiations and arrangements 

Tunisia – Formation of a new body of inspectors for the recruitment industry  

India – Blacklisting employers and recruiters abroad to protect Indian migrant workers  

Piloting fair recruitment from Bangladesh to Qatar in the construction sector  

Fair recruitment pilot between Nepal and Jordan in the garment sector  

Mexico - Fair recruitment practice by recruitment agency adapted to COVID-19  

Code of Conduct on the fair recruitment of Filipino migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong (China)  

Code of Conduct in international supply chains by Responsible Business Alliance 

Commitment to fair recruitment and due diligence in the sugar and palm oil industry of Guatemala   (English) Guatemala – Compromiso con la contratación equitativa y la debida diligencia en el sector guatemalteco del azúcar y el aceite de palma (Español)

Zero recruitment fee policy for (migrant) workers in Jordan 

Guatemala – Outreach through trade unions including attention to COVID-19 (English) Guatemala – Difusión a través de los sindicatos, incluida la atención a la COVID-19 (Español)

Raising Pakistani migrant worker’s awareness of their right to fair recruitment