ICMC, serving as chair of the International NGO Platform on the Migrant Workers Convention and with Caritas Internationalis and other organizations, had proposed this special focus to the UN Committee on Migrant Workers.

“Many of ICMC’s members are directly engaged in providing services, advocacy, even rescue and emergency shelter to migrants working as domestic workers around the world,” explained Johan Ketelers, Secretary General of ICMC, noting that “domestic work and workers are almost universally excluded from the protection of labor laws and foreigners working abroad in private settings typically hidden from view—a majority of them women—need the protection that a special framework of migrants can offer.”

The Director of the Human Rights Council and Treaty Division of the Office of the High Commissioner on Refugees, Bacre Ndiaye, impressed the gravity of the day upon attendees stating that, “too little attention has been focused on migrant domestic workers although they constitute a large portion of today's migrant worker population—whether in regular, documented status, or not.”

Participants underlined the need for greater protection of domestic workers who, due to the special nature of their employment, are particularly at risk.

Caritas representative, Martina Liebsch emphasized “that there should be a common framework which outlines the basic elements for the improvement of the protection of migrant domestic workers.” A former migrant domestic worker also gave a first hand account of the difficulties and hardships she had personally endured.

During a session of parallel working groups, participants further discussed current problems and possible ways in which a new instrument could address these concerns in the context of the pre- and post- migration departures.

Acting as rapporteur, John Bingham, ICMC Head of Policy, noted the importance of pre-departure programs, including not only preparation and rights-awareness raising for workers, but regulation and obligation awareness-raising of recruitment agencies and employers, as well as the role that countries both of origin and of employment share in monitoring complaints and abuses abroad, and offering protection to workers in need.

The Day of General Discussion concluded with a decision by the UN Committee to present the day’s recommendations and offer the committee’s expertise to the ILO, prepare a report for consideration at the Global Forum on Migration and Development in Athens in November, and develop a formal perspective—called a General Comment— on migrant domestic workers that will serve an important tool in the interpretation and application of the UN convention going forward.

ICMC pushes legal framework and protections for Migrant Domestic Workers (354.13 KB)