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EU-MPTF Spotlight Initiative ILO-UNW JP "Safe and Fair: Realizing women migrant workers' right and opportunities in the ASEAN region" - Final evaluation

eval_number:

2829

eval_url:

https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/eval/2829

lessons_learned:

themes:

theme:

Migration

category:

Conditions of work & equality

---

comments:

Future labour migration and EVAW programming

challenges:

As external parties, it can be challenging to influence employers and help them to meet their obligations to pay for recruitment fees under international standards as well as influence government policies that concern recruitment processes and paperwork. Awareness-raising and advocacy efforts among these stakeholder groups is likely necessary to facilitate a friendlier re-migration process for WMWs.

success:

ILO and UN Women generally have strong relationships with ministries of labour and ministries of women’s affairs. Leveraging these relationships could potentially help influence changes to government recruitment practices.

context:

While the international standards (ILO Convention 181 and ILO General Principles and Operational Guidelines for Fair Recruitment) stipulate that employers should bear all recruitment costs, including travel, this is often not enforced, and thus migrant workers end up having to pay the costs of returning to their countries of origin.

description:

Women migrant workers (WMWs) require support to continue working legally in destination countries or to re-migrate through regular channels when their employment contracts (and corresponding work visas) are about to expire. Without this support, they risk losing their legal status and becoming more vulnerable to exploitation and violence.There are significant opportunity costs, expenses, and inconvenience involved for WMWs to return to their countries of origin to re-migrate through regular channels once their employment contracts and work visas have come to an end. Because of this, many WMWs choose to stay working in the country of destination past the contract expiration date. This results in a loss of legal status which makes them more vulnerable to exploitation and violence. WMWs require support to save enough money to return to their country of origin to re-migrate through regular migration channels as well as advocacy on the part of the UN and its partners to make reapplications easier, faster, and less costly.

administrative_issues:

This is a relatively new area of advocacy for UN programming and would require time, effort, and financial resources to make notable progress.

url:

https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/lessons/1680818

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location:

country:

Inter-Regional

region:

Inter-Regional

---

eval_title:

EU-MPTF Spotlight Initiative ILO-UNW JP "Safe and Fair: Realizing women migrant workers' right and opportunities in the ASEAN region" - Final evaluation