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Protecting migrant women in the labour market

Resolution 1811 (2011)1

1.       Over
half of the world’s 210 million migrants and three quarters of
all refugees are women. According to United Nations estimates,
in 2010 migrant women represented 52.3% of the 69 million
migrants in Europe. Increasingly, women are migrating in
search of economic opportunities – a trend that is not likely
to reverse in the foreseeable future.

2.
Migrant women play essential roles in the labour markets and
make a valuable contribution to the economies and societies of
host countries. But they also face specific challenges. Women
mainly migrate out of necessity, often having to leave their
children behind in order to find work to support their
families. Others migrate with their families, and bear the
burden of hard work, as well as caregiving at home.

3.
Migrant women tend to find work in traditional women’s roles –
domestic work, childminding, health care, hotels and catering,
garment manufacturing, piece work – where they work long hours
for low pay and may be severely exploited, many of them with
an irregular legal status. Domestic work is particularly
problematic as women are isolated and sometimes abused, with
few benefits and little recourse to justice. It is an
occupation which is not internationally recognised as "work".
Migrant women may also face abuse and violence by employers,
law enforcement officials, employment agencies and spouses.
Because of the growing criminalisation of migrants, and
because of their limited knowledge about their rights and
where to turn for help, they are often unable to seek redress
for such abuse.

4.
Significant numbers of women enter host countries as spouses
of migrant workers. Because of their immigration status, many
of these women are not allowed to work for a certain length of
time. This forces them to seek employment in unregulated
sectors and in jobs well below their levels of qualifications.
In most countries they lose their immigration status and right
to protection if they decide to leave their husbands or
partners because of domestic violence. Many married women of
certain cultural and ethnic backgrounds are also discouraged
from entering paid employment by their families and
communities. They remain confined to the home doing housework
and isolated from the local community, without real
opportunities to learn the language of the host country, thus
further exacerbating their isolation and reducing their
possibilities to integrate in their host societies.

5.        Women
asylum seekers and refugees are a particularly vulnerable
category of women in the labour market. Lengthy asylum
procedures and non-recognition of gender-based asylum claims
often push these women to destitution and domestic servitude.
The situation is equally bad for trafficked women, who not
only have to prove that they have been trafficked into the
country, but even if they have been given the right to stay in
the host country on humanitarian grounds, they find it
difficult to obtain gainful employment because of the
temporariness of their status.

6.       The
Parliamentary Assembly has repeatedly emphasised the need for
and proposed measures to promote the integration of immigrant
women in Europe (most recently in
Resolution 1478 (2006) and
Recommendation 1732 (2006)), and also the need to protect
migrant women from domestic violence (Resolution 1697 (2009)
and
Recommendation 1891 (2009) "Migrant women: at particular
risk from domestic violence").

7.       In
view of the above considerations, the Assembly recognises the
need for host countries to develop and implement measures to
specifically address the protection of migrant women in the
labour market, irrespective of their occupation or migrant
status. In this regard, it calls upon member states of the
Council of Europe to:

7.1.
increase legal migration opportunities for women and adopt
immigration policies based on human rights that are gender
sensitive and empowering, and which prevent irregular
migration, exploitation and trafficking. In particular,
member states are called upon to:

7.1.1.
improve laws and policies that regulate recruitment and
employment of women migrant workers; aspire to attain
labour migration agreements, including a 50-50 quota for
women and men;

7.1.2.
diversify and provide additional legal employment
opportunities for migrant women;

7.1.3.
ensure that any studies undertaken to map the skills that
are necessary to be filled by migrant workers include
domestic services such as childminders and care
workers;

7.1.4.
ensure that a balanced proportion of women and men benefit
from circular migration programmes;

7.1.5.
encourage countries of origin to create a single and
effective system of information on jobs abroad, targeting
an equal number of jobs for migrant women, and strengthen
the monitoring of employment agencies and other agencies
providing information abroad;

7.1.6.
instruct consulates in countries of origin to provide
information to migrating women on the dangers of human
trafficking and exploitation, including adequate
information on legal rights and possibilities of redress
and on organisations to contact in case of urgent
need;

7.2.
uphold fundamental human rights, inter alia, by:

7.2.1.
granting an individual legal status to migrant women who
join their spouses through family reunion, if possible
within one year of their date of arrival, as recommended
in many previous Assembly resolutions;

7.2.2.
ensuring the right to family life and to marriage in line
with Articles 8 and 12 of the European Convention on Human
Rights (ETS No. 5), by refraining from imposing excessive
admission criteria, such as onerous language tests, for
spouses in the family reunification procedure;

7.2.3.
authorising women who have joined their spouses to seek
employment immediately upon arrival and to take affordable
training and language courses;

7.2.4.
granting migrant women in an irregular situation full
access to health care and education, fair working
conditions, and ensuring that they are able to report
violence and exploitation without fear of deportation;

7.2.5.
providing suitable assistance, including psychological and
rehabilitation assistance, and protection services,
including free legal aid, interpretation services, housing
and childcare facilities, to victims of domestic and
workplace violence, discrimination, exploitation and
trafficking;

7.2.6.
establishing a legal framework guaranteeing migrant women
the right to hold their own passports and residence
permits and making the unofficial confiscation of these
documents a criminal offence;

7.3.
promote equal opportunities by:

7.3.1.
ensuring that all migrant women, independent of their
legal status, are granted the same rights as national
workers; in particular, by guaranteeing their access to
decent working conditions, protection under labour
legislation and access to social security;

7.3.2.
introducing procedures for the recognition of
degrees/diplomas and professional qualifications obtained
in the country of origin and providing opportunities for
upgrading qualifications through vocational and life-long
training as well as local language skills;

7.3.3.
advocating entrepreneurship and self-employment among
migrant women, and providing appropriate support for them
to set up or develop businesses;

7.4.
prevent and combat exploitative practices in the labour
market by:

7.4.1.
promoting decent, humane, dignified and remunerative
employment of women migrant workers;

7.4.2.
setting up systems to monitor the situation of migrant
women in the labour market as regards minimum wages,
working conditions and the application of health and
safety regulations;

7.4.3.
introducing registration and licensing schemes for labour
providers, especially in insufficiently or non-regulated
sectors such as health care and domestic work; imposing
dissuasive and proportionate sanctions both for employment
agencies and user companies in breach of labour
regulations;

7.4.4.
informing women migrant workers about their rights,
complaint procedures, and contact information for workers’
rights groups;

7.4.5.
delinking labour inspection from immigration remits and
granting undocumented workers the right to report abuse
without having to fear for their residency in the host
country;

7.4.6.
granting protective immigration status to women migrant
workers who have been victims of abuse or
mistreatment.

8.       The
Assembly urges member states to recognise the important
productive role and the social value of domestic work. To this
end, it encourages member states to:

8.1.
recognise domestic work as work under national labour
law;

8.2.
support the elaboration of a new International Labour
Organization (ILO) convention on domestic workers and the
supplementary recommendation on decent work for domestic
workers;

8.3.
develop independent visa schemes for migrant domestic and
care workers which would allow legal entry, provide a
standardised working contract, allow for a change of
employer and type of work;

8.4.
ensure that visas are not tied to particular employers and
remove or exclude any stipulation that employees must live
in the employer’s home;

8.5.
provide migrant domestic workers with labour rights and
protections, especially as regards clearly defined work
tasks, daily hours of work and rest periods, wages (at least
the minimum wage or equivalent) and method of payment,
standards of night work and overtime, leave periods,
standards of termination of employment and social security
protection;

8.6.
protect migrant domestic workers against all forms of abuse
and harassment, including physical, verbal, sexual and
psychological abuse and harassment; guarantee their right to
seek legal remedies against employers that mistreat
them;

8.7.
support the work of non-governmental organisations and
grassroots associations which promote women’s and migrants’
rights, the prevention of abuse, exploitation and violence
against migrant women, and advocacy for the empowerment of
women.

1 Assembly debate on 15 April
2011 (18th Sitting) (see Doc.
12549, report of the Committee on Migration, Refugees and
Population, rapporteur: Mrs Frahm, and Doc.
12578, opinion of the Committee on Equal Opportunities for
Women and Men, rapporteur: Ms Circene). Text adopted by the
Assembly on 15 April 2011 (18th Sitting).

See also
Recommendation 1970 (2011).

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