Violence Against Women Migrant Workers

A/RES/64/139No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 62aAdvancement of women, published in 2010.

What other versions does this mandate have?

19 versions · 1994–2025

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/80/185

2025A/RES/80/185Violence against women migrant workersLatestCompare with previous version
2023A/RES/78/180Violence against women migrant workersCompare with previous version
2022A/RES/76/141Violence against women migrant workersCompare with previous version
2020A/RES/74/127Violence against women migrant workersCompare with previous version
2018A/RES/72/149Violence against women migrant workersCompare with previous version

Versions are identified automatically by matching titles within the same organ (~97% accuracy on a manual audit).

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

1 report of the Secretary-General submitted under this mandate, 2011.

2011A/66/212Violence against women migrant workers report of the Secretary-General

Identified automatically from the metadata in each report’s UN Digital Library catalogue record.

What does this mandate say?

21 operative paragraphs

Takes note with appreciation of the report of the Secretary-General;

Encourages Member States to consider signing and ratifying or acceding to relevant International Labour Organization conventions and to consider signing and ratifying or acceding to the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, and the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, as well as all human rights treaties that contribute to the protection of the rights of women migrant workers;

Takes note of the report of the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on violence against women, its causes and consequences entitled “Political economy of women’s human rights”, submitted to the Council at its eleventh session, in particular her elaboration in that report of the current issues of the exploitation and violence that women migrants face in the context of the current global economic trends and crises;

Encourages all United Nations special rapporteurs on human rights whose mandates touch on the issues of violence against women migrant workers to improve the collection of information on and analysis of the current challenges facing women migrant workers, and also encourages Governments to cooperate with the special rapporteurs in this regard;

Calls upon all Governments to incorporate a human rights and gender perspective in legislation and policies on international migration and on labour and employment, consistent with their human rights obligations and commitments under human rights instruments, for the prevention of and protection of migrant women against violence and discrimination, exploitation and abuse, and to take effective measures to ensure that such migration and labour policies do not reinforce discrimination and bias against women;

Calls upon Governments to adopt or strengthen measures to protect the human rights of women migrant workers, regardless of their immigration status, including in policies that regulate the recruitment and deployment of women migrant workers, and to consider expanding dialogue among States on devising innovative methods to promote legal channels of migration, inter alia, in order to deter illegal migration;

Urges Governments to enhance bilateral, regional, interregional and international cooperation to address violence against women migrant workers, fully respecting international law, including international human rights law, as well as to strengthen efforts in reducing the vulnerability of women migrant workers, including by fostering sustainable development alternatives to migration in countries of origin;

Also urges Governments to take into account the best interests of the child, by adopting or strengthening measures to promote and protect the human rights of migrant girls, including unaccompanied girls, regardless of their immigration status, so as to prevent labour and economic exploitation, discrimination, sexual harassment, violence and sexual abuse in the workplace, including in domestic work;

Further urges Governments, in cooperation with international organizations, civil society, including non-governmental organizations, and the private sector, to strengthen the focus on and funding support for the prevention of violence against women migrant workers, in particular by promoting the access of women to meaningful and gender-sensitive information and education on, inter alia, the costs and benefits of migration, rights and benefits to which they are entitled in the countries of origin and employment, overall conditions in countries of employment and procedures for legal migration, as well as to ensure that laws and policies governing recruiters, employers and intermediaries promote adherence to and respect for the human rights of migrant workers, particularly women;

Encourages all States to remove obstacles that may prevent the transparent, safe, unrestricted and expeditious transfer of remittances of migrants to their countries of origin or to any other countries, in conformity with applicable legislation, and to consider, as appropriate, measures to solve other problems that may impede women migrant workers’ access to and management of their economic resources;

Calls upon Governments to recognize the right of women migrant workers, regardless of immigration status, to have access to emergency health care and in this regard to ensure that women migrant workers are not discriminated against on the grounds of pregnancy and childbirth;

Urges States that have not yet done so to adopt and implement legislation and policies that protect all women migrant domestic workers, and to grant women migrant workers in domestic service access to transparent mechanisms for bringing complaints against employers, while stressing that such instruments should not punish women migrant workers, and calls upon States to promptly investigate and punish all violations;

Calls upon Governments, in cooperation with international organizations, non-governmental organizations, the private sector and other stakeholders, to provide women migrant workers who are victims of violence with the full range of immediate assistance and protection, such as access to counselling, legal and consular assistance and temporary shelter, as well as mechanisms to allow the views and concerns of victims to be presented and considered at appropriate stages of proceedings, including other measures that will allow victims to be present during the judicial process, to the extent possible, as well as to establish reintegration and rehabilitation schemes for returning women migrant workers;

Also calls upon Governments, in particular those of the countries of origin and destination, to put in place penal and criminal sanctions in order to punish perpetrators of violence against women migrant workers and intermediaries, and redress and justice mechanisms that victims can access effectively, as well as to ensure that migrant women victims of violence do not suffer from re-victimization, including by authorities;

Urges all States to adopt effective measures to put an end to the arbitrary arrest and detention of women migrant workers and to take action to prevent and punish any form of illegal deprivation of the liberty of women migrant workers by individuals or groups;

Encourages Governments to formulate and implement training programmes for their law enforcers, immigration officers and border officials, diplomatic and consular officials, prosecutors and service providers, with a view to sensitizing those public-sector workers to the issue of violence against women migrant workers and imparting to them the necessary skills and attitude to ensure the delivery of proper, professional and gender-sensitive interventions;

Calls upon States, in accordance with the provisions of article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to ensure that, if a woman migrant worker is arrested or committed to prison or custody pending trial, or is detained in any other manner, competent authorities respect her freedom to communicate with and have access to the consular officials of the country of her nationality, and in this regard to inform without delay, if that woman migrant worker so requests, the consular post of her State of nationality;

Invites Governments, the United Nations system and other concerned intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations to cooperate towards a better understanding of the issues concerning women and international migration, and to improve the collection, dissemination and analysis of sex- and age-disaggregated data and information in order to assist in the formulation of migration and labour policies that are, inter alia, gender-sensitive and that protect human rights, as well as to aid in policy assessment;

Encourages concerned Governments, in particular those of the countries of origin, transit and destination, to avail themselves of the expertise of the United Nations, including the Statistics Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the Secretariat, the United Nations Development Fund for Women and the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, to develop appropriate national data-collection and analysis methodologies that will generate comparable data and tracking and reporting systems on violence against women migrant workers;

Notes with appreciation the elaboration and adoption by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women of general recommendation No. 26, on women migrant workers, and calls upon States parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women to consider the recommendation;

Requests the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly at its sixty-sixth session on the problem of violence against women migrant workers and on the implementation of the present resolution, taking into account updated information from the organizations of the United Nations system, in particular the International Labour Organization, the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Development Fund for Women, the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, as well as the reports of special rapporteurs that refer to the situation of women migrant workers and other relevant sources, such as the International Organization for Migration, including non-governmental organizations.

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Violence Against Women Migrant Workers

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