3. The rapid transformation of economies has generated an increasing demand for highly skilled workers. Whether part of the labour market of transnational corporations or utilized for specific projects, these professional and technical workers are increasingly present in the overseas work landscape. While they still constitute a minority, and enjoy a comfortable level of protection, they play a significant role in terms of technology transfer and cultural relations.

4. The vast majority of migrants in Asia, however, are workers, participating in a migratory system with specific characteristics. Labour migration is mediated by employment agencies, both in countries of origin and countries of destination, with increasing migration costs. It is strictly temporary, with limited or no possibility for long-term integration. It is highly regulated, but nonetheless replete of abuse and rights violations. And it leads to uncertain reintegration, which becomes a subsequent reason for new migration. Migrant workers find occupation in Asia particularly in the construction sector (9 out of ten construction workers in Singapore are migrants), in the manufacturing sector for small firms or for subcontracting companies, in services, in plantations, rice mills and fisheries. They are provided low salaries and little or no benefits.

5. Within this labour migration system, with limited or no possibility for integration, migrant women are not vicarious migrants, but migrants in their own right, and sometimes the major component of migration flows from various nations. At the same time, they are confined to traditional roles in the economies, as they find employment mostly in the health, entertainment and domestic service sectors. In those occupations, often inadequately addressed by labour legislation, migrant women have been rendered particularly vulnerable.

6. In the flows of migrant workers in Asia-Pacific, where the pressure to migrate is accompanied by restrictive migration policies, irregular or undocumented migration has become widespread. Whether as overstayers of legal visas, trainees turned into migrants, runaways from difficult employment conditions, or outright undocumented migrants, irregular migrants comprise between 30 and 40 per cent of the estimated 6 million migrants in Asia. Their irregular situation puts them at the mercy of unscrupulous agents, employers and officials and weakens their possibility to seek redress.

7. Migrants seeking employment abroad have increasingly fallen victim of traffickers. Trafficking has developed along various routes in Asia, whether from China to Japan or to Guam, or from Nepal and Bangladesh to India and the Middle East, or from Vietnam and Laos into Thailand, or from Thailand and the Philippines to Japan. Trafficked migrants are workers deployed abroad and kept in indentured labour or women and children turned into sex workers. Recently, Australia has become the target for smuggling migrants, particularly from Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

8. The recent financial crisis from which Asian economies are slowly emerging has shed some additional light into migration in the region. It has confirmed that migrants are considered disposable workers, as countries affected by the crisis (Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea) rushed into repatriating them. However, it also confirmed that migrants do not substitute, but complement the local labour force, as many industries asked for the retention of migrants for jobs shunned by the local workers. Finally, it highlighted the worsening of labour conditions for migrants, as salaries were reduced and additional costs imposed on them.

The vulnerability of migrants

9. The brief highlight of the main traits of migration in Asia-Pacific indicate that migrants are in a condition of vulnerability. Such condition derives from weaknesses in various phases of the migration system. At the recruitment stage, migrants are vulnerable to incomplete or deceitful information by recruiters, to contract substitution, to excessive fees and to the promise of non-existing jobs. In the country of destination, migrants are vulnerable to abusive working conditions, they are required to work long hours, they experience non-payment or deferred payment of salary, they lack social security and health protection, and they experience maltreatment and violence. Migrant women are particularly vulnerable to violence and sexual abuse. Irregular migrants are subject to abusive conditions under the threat of repatriation.

10. However, the vulnerability of migrants is not limited to specific situations or to unscrupulous people. It is embedded in a development system which relies on foreign workers for low paying and low status jobs. And the system ensures that those foreigners are kept in that situation to provide continuity and flexibility to the labour market. Thus, attention to protection cannot be limited to the correction of specific situations. It must question the system that continues to produce situations of exploitation.

Protection of migrants: the response of ILO

11. The condition of foreigners, of workers and of migrants points to the various needs of protection they require, but also to a variety of instruments they can invoke for their benefit. Specific groups of persons, such as women, children and the undocumented, present additional entitlements or needs for protection. However, the ultimate objective to ensure protection to migrants is to provide them with equality of treatment with nationals. In this regard, in the Asian context such equality is provided only in a limited way. In the temporary labour migration system prevalent in Asia migrants are in demand precisely because they can receive lower standards than nationals.

12. To extend further protection to their citizens abroad, countries of origin can enter into bilateral agreements. Currently, there is resistance in the region to engage in such agreements, whether related to labour or to social security. However, limited arrangements have been signed among some countries. In absence of specific agreements, countries of origin are mainly left with the good offices of diplomacy to exert pressure on countries of destination for the respect of the rights of their citizens. Diplomatic pressure, however, is limited, as countries of origin are normally in an economic, and consequently also political, weak situation.

13. Although inherently an issue of interest among various countries in a region or at the international level, migration is basically approached as a national concern. Nevertheless, attempts have been made to provide an international framework to the protection of migrants. The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, adopted by the United Nations in 1990, is the broadest of such attempts. Regional efforts have been made in South America and Africa, but with limited results. The best success was obtained in Europe, with the conventions of the Council of Europe and then the treaties of the European Union.

14. However, it was ILO that led the effort in ensuring protection to migrant workers. Not only does a range of ILO Conventions applicable to all workers cover migrants, they are also covered by two specific Conventions, the Migration for Employment Convention of 1949 (No. 97) and the Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions) Convention of 1975 (No. 143). There are also two Conventions related to social security: the Equality of Treatment (Social Security) Convention of 1962 (No. 118) and the Maintenance of Social Security Rights Convention of 1982 (No. 157)).

15. ILO Conventions provide comprehensive coverage for migrants from before leaving the country, during the journey, in the country of employment, during employment and upon return. In reference to the specific situation of migration in Asia, it is important to mention that ILO Conventions provide that recruitment should be rendered free (see also the more recent Convention 181), that migrants have the right to a written contract of employment before departure, that they should receive equality of treatment with nationals, that they should not be subject to discrimination during times of recession, that they form and join trade unions, that countries should facilitate family reunification and that migrants have the right to appeal against a decision to terminate their employment. These aspects have been mentioned, among others, because they constitute the most evident cases in which the reality departs from the Conventions.

16. For instance, employment agencies, which used to be compensated for their services by employers, have been allowed to charge workers for the procurement of employment abroad. In addition, the mediation of brokers in receiving countries and competition among agencies has inflated migration costs to the point that it takes several months for migrants to liberate themselves from this bondage. As for contracts signed before departure, in many cases migrants are required to sign a different contract upon arrival, and often in a language they do not know. Expulsion of migrants during times of recession is all too evident, and still continues, in the region. Forming or joining trade unions is allowed in some countries, but very discouraged or practically impossible in others. In addition, migrants involved in occupations such as domestic work do not have any national contract to invoke. And in many cases, even if they have the possibility to initiate a case for redress, they do not have the actual possibility to remain in the territory until the case is settled by the courts.

17. Unfortunately, the major limitation of ILO Conventions on migrants in Asia is that no Asia-Pacific country has ratified them, except for New Zealand and Malaysia (limited to Sabah), that have ratified Convention 97. Another limitation in ILO instruments is that they reflect the traditional situation of a male dominated migration system which was prevalent when the Conventions were adopted. Nevertheless, revising the Conventions at this time might not lead to better standards for migrants. To overcome the impasse of ILO intervention when Conventions are not applicable, the procedure of "pattern or practice studies" was adopted by the ILO Governing Body in 1997. It is a procedure which trade unions might resort to when other venues are not available.

Migrants and the Trade Unions

18. If the broad forces of globalization have had an impact on migration, particularly on increasing the precariousness of migrant conditions, they also had an impact on unionized labour. From the years of widespread influence by the unions not only on issues concerning collective bargaining but also on political issues, we are now in a phase in which unions have been relegated to a less decisive role in labour relations and civil society. Globalization has imposed the need to move away from rigid labour markets. In the name of flexibility, there has been an erosion of acquired rights.

19. At the same time, labour movements in the world are deepening their analysis of globalization, particularly of free trade, as the recent episodes in Seattle on the occasion of the WTO World Conference indicate. Unions both in developing and developed countries are aware that globalization offers opportunities, but they also realize that globalization can have deleterious effects. It is not clear whether the manifestation in Seattle signals the beginning of a new phase for the labour movement. However, it is clear that people want to be part of decision making and that the role of unions has been complemented by the role of NGOs.

20. Migrant workers have traditionally been ignored or opposed by unions. In countries of origin migrants workers have been ignored because they do not become members of unions. The participants to the symposium have agreed that although migrants perform an important function for the economy, as they diminish the level of unemployment, meet opportunities for acquisition of skills, and remit foreign currency, they have remained largely outside the interest of unions, normally occupied with other larger and more pressing domestic issues. The participants have also acknowledged the role of migrants in receiving countries, as they perform jobs for which sufficient local labour is not available. However, migrants have been ignored because they possess little bargaining power. Sometimes they also have been opposed because they diminish the standards and contractual strength of national workers.

21. Globalization brings about a change of perspective, since unions realize that migrants are not necessarily in direct competition for jobs with local workers and that increasing the standards for migrants will result in better standards also for national workers. This approach, however, requires a change of attitude among union members. Nevertheless, the participants in the symposium have reaffirmed that migrant workers must be included in the concerns of the trade unions. Not only is the mission of trade unions all encompassing, but also allowing differential treatment among workers does not serve the cause of workers in general.

22. Nevertheless, the participants did not ignore the difficulties inherent in encouraging the participation of migrants to the trade unions, as well as in providing services to the migrants. Difficulties in countries of origin stem basically from the difficulty of unions to offer services to migrants while they are abroad. Difficulties of unions in receiving countries emerge from the fact that migrants work for many different employers and in a variety of sectors, from the fact that migrants are not very accessible and problems with language and culture do not facilitate accessibility, and from the fact that migrants, who are often not well educated and do not have an informed knowledge on trade unions, do not feel encouraged to become members, particularly if they are in an irregular situation. In addition, there are restrictive polices and practices in receiving countries and widespread pressure from employers not to join trade unions, under the threat of losing the job, a risk that migrants, who have incurred huge migration costs, cannot afford. Unions also suffer from lack of resources, limited networking and a basic aversion from members to extend services to migrants.

23. In spite of those difficulties, the participants have agreed to recommit themselves to encourage union membership of migrant workers of both woman and man and to provide protection to migrants and have adopted the following recommendations.

Governments in the region should take steps towards implementing the objectives adopted in the Bangkok Declaration of April 23, 1999 by the Ministerial Meeting jointly convened by the Thai Royal Governments and the International Organization for Migration.

Governments in the region should provide equal treatment to migrants with regard to the right of association and collective bargaining, conditions of employment, social security, non-discrimination and the other rights as provided for in ILO conventions.

Governments in the region should provide equal treatment to both woman and man migrants; in particular woman migrants to receive adequate maternity protection, equal pay and treatment according to international standards.

Unions should assist in offering accredited programmes for pre-departure orientation and training, providing country-specific information about conditions of recruitment, employment, social security rights and relevant international labour standards.

Unions should negotiate for internationally accepted standard employment contracts, to be signed by employers, migrants and employment agencies

Unions should make representation for the reduction of fees charged to migrants in view of the complete abolition of recruitment fees as provided for in ILO Conventions.

Unions should ensure that departing migrants are provided with contact names and addresses of trade unions in the receiving countries.

Unions should lobby employers’ associations to establish a one-stop service for the reintegration of returning migrants.

Unions should facilitate the reintegration of migrants through appropriate information for employment, through training for acquisition of entrepreneurial skills and through establishment and support of cooperatives for migrants.

Unions should provide referral services, particularly for migrants who have suffered from abuse.

Unions should ensure women migrants are provided adequate protection, in particular protection from discrimination and falling victims to trafficking.