Violence Against Women Migrant Workers

A/RES/72/149No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 28aAdvancement of women, published in 2018.

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).

What subjects does this mandate have?

8 topics

Gender Discrimination Gender-Based Violence Migration Policy Trafficking in Persons Women Migrant Workers Women Migrants Women's Employment Women's Rights

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

1 report of the Secretary-General submitted under this mandate, 2019.

2019A/74/235Violence 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?

42 operative paragraphs

Takes note of the report of the Secretary-General;

Takes note with appreciation of the report of the Secretary-General on the review and appraisal of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the outcomes of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly, which highlights, inter alia, that overall progress in the implementation of the Platform for Action has been particularly slow for women and girls who experience multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and that marginalized groups of women, including migrant women, are at particular risk of discrimination and violence;

Invites Member States to consider ratifying relevant International Labour Organization conventions, including the Migration for Employment Convention (Revised), 1949 (No. 97), the Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions) Convention, 1975 (No. 143), the Private Employment Agencies Convention, 1997 (No. 181) and the Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189), 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,18 the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, as well as all other human rights treaties that contribute to the protection of the rights of women migrant workers, calls upon States parties to comply with their relevant obligations under international law, and encourages Member States to implement the United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons;

Takes note of the reports of the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on the human rights of migrants submitted to the Council at its seventeenth and twentieth sessions, in particular their elaboration of the vulnerabilities and challenges faced by irregular migrants, including negative public perceptions and limited access to protection, assistance and justice, and of the report of the Special Rapporteur submitted to the Council at its twenty-sixth session, in particular the focus of its thematic part on labour exploitation of migrants, covering some of the most common manifestations of labour exploitation affecting migrants;

Welcomes the adoption of the New Urban Agenda at the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III), held in Quito from 17 to 20 October 2016, in which Member States committed to recognizing the contribution of the working poor in the informal economy, particularly women migrant workers, to the urban economies;

Encourages all United Nations agencies and 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 those areas within their mandates relating to the current challenges facing women migrant workers, including in supply chains, and also encourages Governments to cooperate with the agencies and special rapporteurs in this regard;

Calls upon all Governments to incorporate a human rights, gender-sensitive and people-centred perspective in legislation, policies and programmes 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, trafficking in persons, exploitation and abuse, to take effective measures to ensure that such migration and labour policies do not reinforce discrimination, and, where necessary, to conduct impact assessment studies of such legislation, policies and programmes in order to identify the impact of measures taken and the results achieved in regard to women migrant workers;

Calls upon Governments to adopt or strengthen measures to protect the human rights of women migrant workers, including domestic workers, regardless of their migratory status, including in policies that regulate the recruitment and deployment of women migrant workers, to consider expanding dialogue among States on devising innovative methods to promote legal channels of migration in order to deter irregular migration, to consider incorporating a gender perspective into immigration laws in order to prevent discrimination and violence against women, including in independent, circular and temporary migration, and to consider permitting, in accordance with national legislation, women migrant workers who are victims of violence, trafficking in persons or other forms of exploitation or abuse to apply for residency permits independently of abusive employers or spouses, and to eliminate abusive sponsorship systems;

Encourages Governments to consider, inter alia, provisions regarding gender equality and the empowerment of all migrant women and girls, and the tackling of all forms of violence perpetrated against them, in the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration, which will be negotiated in 2018;

Also encourages Governments to consider adopting measures to reduce the cost of labour migration and promote ethical recruitment policies and practices between sending and receiving countries;

Urges States to adopt or develop and implement legislation and policies, in accordance with their commitments and obligations under international law, to prevent and respond to gender-related killing of women and girls, including femicide, while taking into account the particular difficulties faced by women migrant workers in accessing justice;

Encourages Governments to seek to address the push and pull factors surrounding women’s irregular migration, including the need to resolve care deficits in labour-importing countries and to regulate, formalize, professionalize and protect the terms and conditions of employment in care work, in line with national law and applicable obligations under international law;

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 to reduce the vulnerability of women migrant workers by promoting decent work, by, inter alia, adopting minimum wage policies and employment contracts in accordance with applicable laws and regulations, facilitating effective access to justice and effective action in the areas of law enforcement, prosecution, prevention, capacity-building and victim protection and support, exchanging information and good practices in combating violence and discrimination against women migrant workers and 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 respect, promote and protect the human rights of migrant children, especially girls, including unaccompanied girls, regardless of their migratory status, so as to prevent trafficking in persons, labour and economic exploitation, discrimination, commercial sexual exploitation, sexual harassment, violence and sexual abuse of migrant children;

Further urges Governments to strongly encourage all stakeholders, especially the private sector, including employment agencies involved in recruiting women migrant workers, 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 and, where applicable, labour 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, including, where appropriate, by reducing transaction costs and implementing woman-friendly remittance transfer, savings and investment schemes, including diaspora investment schemes, in conformity with applicable national 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;

Encourages States to consider designing and implementing financial literacy training programmes for women migrant workers and, where appropriate, their families, and other programmes that may contribute to the full development impact of migration;

Calls upon States to address the structural and underlying causes of violence against women migrant workers, including through education and dissemination of information and by raising awareness of gender-equality issues, promoting their economic empowerment and access to decent work and, where relevant, their integration into the formal economy, in particular in economic decision-making, and promoting their participation in public life, as appropriate;

Calls upon Governments to promote access to adequate health-care services and education for women migrant workers and their accompanying children;

Also calls upon Governments to recognize the right of women migrant workers and their accompanying children, regardless of their migratory status, to have access without discrimination to emergency health care, including in times of humanitarian crises, natural disasters and other emergency situations, and in this regard to ensure that women migrant workers are not discriminated against on the grounds of pregnancy and childbirth and, in accordance with national legislation, to address the vulnerabilities to HIV experienced by migrant populations and support their access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support;

Encourages Governments to ensure the appropriate use of voluntary and confidential HIV testing and pregnancy testing to prevent unwarranted barriers prior to and during migration;

Encourages States to protect women migrant workers, including domestic workers, from becoming victims of trafficking in persons, through the implementation of programmes and policies that prevent victimization and through the provision of protection and access to justice, as well as medical and psychological assistance, where appropriate;

Urges States to recognize the significant contributions and leadership of women in migrant communities and to take appropriate steps to promote their full, equal and meaningful participation in the development of local solutions and opportunities, and also to recognize the importance of protecting labour rights and a safe environment for women migrant workers and those in informal employment, protecting women migrant workers in all sectors and encouraging safe, orderly and regular migration, as well as labour mobility, including circular migration;

Urges States that have not yet done so to adopt and implement legislation and policies that protect all women migrant workers, including those in domestic work, to include therein, and improve where necessary, relevant monitoring and inspection measures, in line with applicable International Labour Organization conventions and other instruments to ensure compliance with international obligations and to grant women migrant workers in domestic service access to gender-sensitive, transparent mechanisms for bringing complaints against recruitment agencies and employers, including terminating their contracts in the event of labour and economic exploitation, discrimination, sexual harassment, violence and sexual abuse in the workplace, while stressing that such instruments should not punish women migrant workers, and calls upon States to promptly investigate and punish all violations of their rights;

Urges Governments to support enhanced reception and reintegration assistance for those who return, with particular attention to the needs of victims of trafficking in persons and of migrants in vulnerable situations, inter alia, children, older women and women with disabilities;

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, irrespective of their migratory status, in line with domestic legislation, access to the full range of emergency assistance and protection and, to the extent possible, with gender-sensitive services that are culturally and linguistically appropriate, which includes the provision of information on the rights of women migrant workers, hotlines, dispute resolution mechanisms, legal aid, victim advocacy, services for children, safety planning, psychological support and trauma counselling, social services, women-only spaces and access to women’s shelters, where these exist, in accordance with relevant international human rights instruments and applicable conventions;

Also calls upon Governments to ensure that legislative provisions and judicial processes are in place to provide women migrant workers access to justice, to enhance, develop or maintain legal frameworks and specific gender-sensitive policies to explicitly meet their needs and rights and, where necessary, to take appropriate steps to reform existing legislation and policies to capture their needs and protect their rights;

Further 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 gender-sensitive redress and justice mechanisms that victims can access effectively and that allow their views and concerns to be presented and considered at appropriate stages of proceedings, including other measures that will allow victims to be present during the judicial process, when possible, and to protect women migrant workers who are victims of violence from revictimization, including by authorities;

Urges all States to adopt and implement 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, implement and refine training programmes for their law enforcement officials, immigration officers and border officials, diplomatic and consular officials, judiciary, prosecutors, public sector medical staff and other 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, including for those in detention facilities;

Also encourages Governments to promote coherence between migration, labour and anti-trafficking policies and programmes concerning women migrant workers, based on a human rights, gender-sensitive and people-centred perspective, to ensure that the human rights of women migrant workers are protected throughout the migration process and to enhance efforts to prevent violence against women migrant workers, prosecute perpetrators and protect and support victims and their families;

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, the 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 the United Nations system and other concerned intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations to cooperate with Governments, within existing resources, 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 and to continue to support national efforts to address violence against women migrant workers in a coordinated way that ensures effective implementation, enhances their impact and strengthens positive outcomes for women migrant workers;

Encourages Governments, in accordance with their applicable legal obligations, to formulate national policies concerning women migrant workers that are based on up-to-date, relevant sex-disaggregated data and analysis, in close consultation with women migrant workers and relevant stakeholders throughout the policy process, and also encourages Governments to ensure that this process is adequately resourced and that the resulting policies have measurable targets and indicators, timetables and monitoring and accountability measures, in particular for employment agencies, employers and public officials, and provide for impact assessments and ensure multi-sector coordination within and between countries of origin, transit and destination through appropriate mechanisms;

Encourages concerned Governments, in particular those of 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 International Labour Organization and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), to develop and enhance appropriate sex-disaggregated national data collection, analysis and dissemination methodologies that will generate comparable data, and tracking and reporting systems on violence against women migrant workers and, wherever possible, on violations of their rights at all stages of the migration process, and:

To further study the costs of violence against women, including migrant workers, to the women themselves, their families and their communities;

To analyse the opportunities available to women migrant workers and their impact on development;

To further assess and measure recruitment costs and fees through the provision of appropriate sex-disaggregated data and analysis, where available;

To support the improvement of macrodata on migration costs and on remittances, for appropriate policy formulation and implementation;

Requests Governments and international organizations to take appropriate measures to give due consideration to the declaration of the United Nations High-level Dialogue on International Migration and Development, held in New York on 3 and 4 October 2013,16 in order to ensure that the human rights and human development aspects of women’s migration are adequately integrated into national, regional and international development policy and practice, such as poverty reduction strategies and strategies aimed at implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;10

Encourages the United Nations system and related entities to continue and step up their efforts and promote partnerships with all stakeholders, including civil society organizations, and to coordinate their work in support, as appropriate, of effective implementation of relevant international and regional instruments in order to enhance their impact through concrete positive outcomes for the advancement of the rights of women migrant workers;

Requests the Secretary-General to provide a comprehensive, analytical and thematic report to the General Assembly at its seventy-fourth session on the problem of violence against women migrant workers, especially domestic workers, and on the implementation of the present resolution, taking into account updated information from Member States, the organizations of the United Nations system, in particular the International Labour Organization, the International Organization for Migration, the United Nations Development Programme, UN-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, including non-governmental organizations.

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Who created this mandate?

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