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Themes and Issues

Migrant Rights

Catholic Migration Commission contributes new tool on Migrant Worker Rights to swirling debate on policies towards undocumented workers.

Contact: Emma Viaud, Head of Communications
Tel: + 41 22 -919 10 27
e-mail: viaud@icmc.net

Papal Nuncio and UN Migrant Workers Committee Chair join ICMC at publication launch April 27th.

As millions of migrant workers and families rally with Church leaders and others demanding greater rights in the US, and the governments of Spain and Italy recently granting rights to hundreds of thousands of migrant workers in their countries, there is no better time to take a good look at what the core international human rights treaties say about the rights of migrant workers and their families.

"We believe this book will help to inform and guide the debate that is swirling in many countries about the rights of migrant workers, documented and undocumented," says Johan Ketelers, Secretary General of the International Catholic Migration Commission."Some of the rhetoric and positions taken in the debate seem to overlook the simple fact that migrant workers are human beings with families, and have fundamental, universally-recognized rights as individuals, as members of families, and as members of at least two societies and communities."

The book is a do-it-yourself kit entitled "Strengthening the Rights of Migrant Workers and their Families with International Human Rights Treaties."
It examines in particular the newest of the seven core UN human rights treaties: the Migrant Workers Convention, which is the first international treaty that gathers in one place all of the universal rights that apply specifically to migrant workers.

In force since 2003, the Migrant Workers Convention has been ratified by 34 countries to date, with ratifications up over 50% in the past three years. This toolkit is one of the first publications in the field.

Four of the Convention's most important, and to some extent controversial, provisions are:

• An explicit endorsement of rights for undocumented migrant workers and members of their families, filling fully 27 articles of the Convention
  
• An affirmation of the rights of ALL migrant workers, whether documented or undocumented, to emergency medical care and to claim wages from an employer for work already performed
  
• An extension of the rights to spouses and dependent children of migrant workers
  
• The creation of a special UN Committee on Migrant Workers, to examine how countries implement, enforce and protect the rights that the Convention describes for migrant workers.

"In addition to timing the publication of the new book for use in the current debate in the US and Europe," Mr. Ketelers added, "we are pleased to have offered the book during the week of the Committee on Migrant Worker's biannual session in Geneva." The Committee is presently considering the reports of Mali and Mexico, with participation by other agencies of the UN, the International Labour Organization, and non-government organizations like ICMC.

Speaking with Mr. Ketelers at the book launch were:

• Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See's Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva. The Archbishop commended the new publication for "adding strength to rights-based, coordinated, coherent and constructive international migration."
  
• Ambassador Prasad Kariyawasam, Chair of the UN Migrant Workers Committee and Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UN in New York. "We need to promote this Convention," said Ambassador Kariyawasam, "so that we have adherence to the Convention from all countries involved in the process, whether they are countries of origin, transit or destination. That is where I really value the effort of the ICMC.