Defending Women Migrants’
Human Rights and Access to Justice

A Joint Statement

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This joint statement underscores the concerns and demands of women migrants in and from Asia Pacific Region as well as the critical need for inclusive, meaningful and effective participation of women migrants in the migration governance and policy making spaces.

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Released in commemoration of International Migrants Day 2025, our statement is a collective agreement on the region’s priority issues and recommendations of women migrants. It is drawn from national consultations in 6 countries – Nepal, Thailand, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Papua New Guinea and United Arab Emirates – along with discussions within the Regional Women Migrant Convening in Kathmandu on 28-30 October 2025, attended by 39 participants representing women migrants and migrant rights organisations from more than 16 countries in the Asia Pacific region.

I. Priority Issues and Concerns of Women Migrants

We emphasise the root causes and drivers of migration for migrant women, in particular economic hardship and poverty, high unemployment, low wages, budget cut on salaries, landlessness, limited access to property, education, skills, and lack of opportunities in home countries, exacerbated by patriarchal mindset, forced and early marriage, caste and class based discrimination as well as social pressure/obligation to support family economy. Neoliberal policies which facilitate land grabbing and worsen climate change as well as political conflict continue to cause the loss of livelihood and displaced people from their home.

We highlight unsafe and irregular migration pathways that emerge in the context of increased restrictions and barriers within regular migration routes, and lead to criminalisation of migration. These restrictive structures are closely linked to discrimination based on gender, caste, class and indigeneity as well as country of origin and political standing. In this context, mobility bans continue to occur, particularly affecting women migrant domestic workers. Undocumented migrants face heightened risks of exploitation, trafficking and smuggling. This situation is further compounded by the lack of disaggregated and/or integrated data, as undocumented migrants are not included within the data system, making it difficult to track violations, obscuring patterns of abuse and limiting effective monitoring and response.

We also identified a lack of involvement of community/grassroots migrant groups in the process of formulation and revision of laws and policies concerning migrant women, as well as policy gaps and challenges in implementation. Against this backdrop, limited participation of grassroots organisations and the absence of migrant-friendly and accessible platforms contributes to a continued lack of centralised information and access to proper resources and knowledge. These situations heighten the vulnerabilities of women migrants to gender-based violence, wage theft, rights violations, and exploitation across the migration journey – transit, workplace, and return.

In addition, throughout the migration journey, women migrants continue facing limited access to services and social protection, including lack of shelter, psycho-social support, lack of legal services and consulate support – women migrants are not aware of these rights because of language barrier, limited outreach and misinformation – with no mechanism or access to justice. Also online harassment, surveillance, cyber exploitation affect migrant and refugee women.

Once arrived, women migrants face exploitation and abuse in a workplace without legal protection – unpaid wages, overwork, lack of rest days, health and psychological challenges. The existing structures make it hard to fight for their rights, as women migrants who work in isolated or private spaces, face difficulties and challenges to connect, organise, or build solidarity with other migrants. They experience an exclusion from labour and social protection laws leading to fear of retaliation, arrest, deportation for reporting cases or joining organisations. Instead of an inclusion in social security mechanisms in several sectors, their documentation status takes precedence over redress of violations.

Upon return, women migrants also faced stigma and reintegration barriers and lack of safe and dignified repatriation mechanisms. Deeply rooted gender norms and victim blaming – patriarchal norms and attitudes – continue to exist and are faced by returnee migrant women, particularly returnee migrant women in distress. Migrants’ families are being denied support systems in cases of deaths of migrant women. Some countries such as Nepal and the Philippines have their re-integration concept as well as national plans and policies but there is no common understanding of what it means at the local level and it is not in line with the needs of returnee women migrants. In addition, reintegration policies often remain limited in scope and do not include provisions that would enable access to subsidies, financial assistance, or old age pension. Women’s contribution to the country of origin’s economy is inadequately recognised. Further, the government scheme for the support of migrants throughout the migration journey does not apply to undocumented women migrants, exposing them to gender, social and economic violence.

International Migration policies and governance has yet to cover the unique challenges faced by women marriage migrants. Women’s residency status is tied not only to the continuity of marriage, but also to whether they are fulfilling caregiving roles within the family. After divorce or domestic violence, women must prove fault through court procedures to maintain status. Marriage-migrant women working in public institutions like multicultural or family centers face low wages, job insecurity, lack of maternity protection. Although employment education and vocational training programs exist for marriage migrant women, many of them face significant barriers to obtaining decent jobs due to being primarily responsible for domestic and caregiving work. There is a lack of participation of marriage migrant women in policy-making processes. Social perception still frames naturalised women as ‘foreigners’.

In addition, internal migrants also face similar issues, but yet to be covered within the migration policies. Women from rural areas living in cities and Indigenous communities often face gender discrimination when seeking employment. They also face difficulties in understanding languages, forcing them to be in low-paid and informal work (trade, food service, home sewing, domestic work) without social protection and with a lack of opportunities for education and professional retraining. In these situations, women internal migrants are vulnerable to violations of labour rights – delayed wages, unpaid overtime, lack of employment contracts and domestic and gender-based violence without adequate legal protection, including violence from employers and family members. And all of this, while they carry the burden of family responsibilities, including childcare and household chores. The lack of registration at place of residence deprives women of access to healthcare, education, housing and social services (especially in informal settlements). Issues with documents also create barriers to enrolling children in schools. However, there is a lack of support from local authorities, CSOs and communities for the integration of internal migrants.

II. Consolidated Recommendations

Our recommendation for actions and measures to be taken at the national, regional and international levels are the following:

1. Address the Structural Causes and Drivers of Migration

Eliminate all adverse drivers and structural factors that force people to leave their country of origin, including by ensuring decent work, a living wage, and education opportunities; developing local agriculture or livelihoods; addressing poverty; and addressing historical and structural discrimination.
Ensure that development, trade and investment, as well as economic policies, do not facilitate land and resource grabbing, increase the role of the private sector in essential services, and/or undermine international human and labour standards.
Generate more decent jobs with a living wage for women and ensure equal access to social protection for all occupations – no contractualisation and outsourcing.

2. Adoption of International Standards

Ensure effective implementation of migration policies based on international human and labour rights standards, and include migrant women regardless of their migration status.
Ratify and Implement treaties and convention related to women and migration to ensure the rights and safety of women migrants, including the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, ILO Convention 190 on Eliminating Violence and Harassment in the World of Work, and ILO Convention 189 on Decent Work for Domestic Workers. Recognise domestic work as work, both in law and in culture.
Effectively implement CEDAW General Recommendations, particularly No. 26 on women migrant workers.

3. Recruitment, Skill Development and Recognition

Ensure a transparent, women-friendly recruitment mechanism; recognise and acknowledge the skills and capacities of women and girls.
Provide pre-departure training on rights, laws, language and culture.
Develop systems of recognition for every kind of skill and experience of migrant workers that allow for advancement in work.
Ensure access to women for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL).
Invest in rural jobs focusing on women and responsive training, digital literacy and accessibility to use technology.
Monitor recruitment practices to prevent exploitation, abuse and trafficking.

4. Access to Information and Data Management

Ensure access to Information for prospective and returnee women migrants on a safe migration pathway and options, including on employment, training or further education options.
Enhance safe and disaggregated data on women migration and decentralise information awareness down to the local level.
Strengthen pre-departure information and orientation with gender and rights modules in diverse languages through different mediums considering language diversity, access and literacy status of women migrants.

5. Legal Identity and Documentation, Immigration Law and Work Permit

Establish one-stop services along the borders and in cities to handle all immigration procedures legally, without relying on brokers and make visual guides available for any immigration procedures change.
Abolish the Kafala system and ensure a significant policy reform, allowing workers, including women domestic workers, to change employers with notice and improving protections as well as access to justice.
Make employers responsible for bringing migrant workers to One-Stop Service centers and providing all necessary documents, including company registration.
Allow asylum seekers and refugees the right to work and to choose their employment.
Review the costs involved in obtaining legal documents (fees, photos, photocopies, medical check up, transportation to services, days missed work etc) in line with wages earned.
Stop the system that requires employers’ certification to change jobs for migrant workers.
Allow migrant workers to work beyond retirement age.

6. Access to Mobility, Integration, Social Adaptation and Social Cohesion

Remove the discriminatory ban, particularly against domestic workers and replace it with an informed context and protection.
Ensure the right to travel within the country for all migrants with documents.
Provide free integration schemes, including by promoting positive social integration (housing, culture) and establishing support centers for migrant women offering legal aid, psychological support, and social integration services.
Promote Social Adaptation, including by implementing adaptation courses: language, culture, socio-cultural norms and urban life specifics.
Promote social cohesion and inclusivity, including promotion of awareness through sports, culture, education and social activities to integrate refugees and migrants into local communities.

7. Gender-Responsive Policies for Migrant Women

Ensure women participation in decision-making processes and empower women to know and claim their rights, change and challenge traditional negative attitudes towards women (patriarchy).
Address persistent gender, caste, and ethnic discrimination that continue to shape women’s migration experiences and limit their access to justice and dignity.
Ensure equal wages and employment opportunities for migrant women.
Ensure access to education for women migrants through flexible and remote formats to accommodate the needs of women.
Support women through affordable and subsidised pre-school child care.
Develop gender-sensitive strategies for women migrants during crises, recognise and support unpaid care work during disasters, and ensure safe migration pathways and livelihood options during and after crises.

8. Recognition and Protection of Women’s Work

Guarantee equal pay for equal work and fair wages across all sectors.
Recognise and establish domestic, care, and unpaid labour as socially and economically valuable work.
Ensure access to social security, healthcare, and safe working conditions for women migrants.
Recognise the socio-economic contribution of women migrants, both in host and home country, including remittance. Include them within the Official statistics / publications.

9. Access to Decent Work, Basic Services and Social Protection

Ensure decent work and living wages for migrant women and include them in gender-responsive social protection within all occupations.
Ensure free and easy access to all basic services – no privatisation in basic and essential services.
Guarantee paid maternity leave and protection from unfair dismissal due to pregnancy.
Ensure that essential health information is available in migrant’s languages. Provide in-person interpreters at health facilities, or if not possible, ensure access to online interpretation.
Allow migrant workers and their children to apply for affordable health insurance without restrictions and ensure that health checks and vaccinations are available for migrants, refugees and their children.
Ensure that all migrant children have access to education according to the “education for all” commitment, regardless of their parents’ legal status. Allocate more resources to children’s education (teachers, schools, equipment, training of teachers for diverse classes).
Develop appropriate and effective systems to ensure that migrants regardless of their migration status who are injured or the families of those who die at work can receive compensation.
Ensure an inclusive social security system that covers all sectors of workers, including agricultural workers, domestic workers, and workers in the informal economy.
Ensure access to Decent Living Conditions and housing for migrants, including provision of safe, affordable and suitable housing options for all migrants, ensuring their housing meets basic standards of safety, sanitation, access to clean water and regular collection of trash.
Provide clear information on the health insurance processes and exercise awareness building campaigns to educate migrants about the value of having health insurance.

10. Return, Repatriation and Reintegration

Strengthen the effective measures of embassies, governments and local level bodies to ensure the safety, emergency response, and reintegration process of women migrants, including to be proactive in providing safe repatriation and compensation, as well as adequate victim identification and psycho-social services.
Ensure economic reintegration for returnee migrant women by providing access to livelihood opportunities, skills training, and entrepreneurship support tailored to women returnees, including ensuring access to microfinance, grants, or seed funding for women-led businesses.
Facilitate social and community support, including by developing community-based support networks to reduce stigma and social exclusion; conduct awareness campaigns highlighting returnee women’s contributions to households and communities, and facilitate engagement of local leaders and families to support women’s reintegration and decision-making autonomy.
Facilitate psychological and health support, including provision of mental health services, counseling, and trauma support for women who faced abuse, exploitation, or stress during migration and ensuring access to healthcare, including reproductive and sexual health services. Establishment of trauma-informed reintegration services rooted in cultural and psychosocial healing.
Establish comprehensive gender-responsive reintegration policy and institutional measures, specifically establishment of dedicated government programs or departments for returnee migrant women’s reintegration, integrate reintegration support into local development plans with gender-sensitive budgeting, and monitor and evaluate reintegration programs to ensure they meet women’s needs effectively.
Facilitate collective empowerment for returnee migrant women, including the support of women returnees to form or join networks and associations for advocacy, peer support, and skills sharing and documenting experiences of returnees to inform policy and improve future migration and reintegration programs.

11. Legal Protection and Access to Justice, and Freedom of Association

Ensure legal services and access to justice mechanism available at the local level
Include all women, men and other genders migrant workers in the labour ordinance of home and host countries.
Ensure the provision regarding leave, paid day off and social protection to be included in the employment contract as well as in the legally binding bilateral agreement between sending and receiving countries.
Provide free interpretation services for or all migrant workers during legal and administrative proceedings.
Ensure access to Justice for women migrants and establish migrant and women friendly complaint mechanisms to allow workers to report violations safely and effectively.
Take action against employers, brokers etc who intimidate migrant women in the course of filing a case or who try to divert the course of justice.
Amend the Labour Relations Act to allow migrant workers to form unions the same as local workers.

12. Accountability (State & Private Sectors), Mechanism and Meaningful Participation

Ensure accountability in recruitment and employment systems, including by strengthening monitoring and accountability for cases of labour exploitation and violence against women.
Ensure effective mechanisms for access to justice for women migrants, including establishing strong and accessible grievance handling mechanisms and regulations for governing compensation claims, with various languages of migrants.
Establish monitoring and accountability mechanisms for effective policy enforcement.
Ensure women migrants participate in policy and decision-making at all levels.

13. Address Gaps within International Migration Policies and Governance

Internal Migrants

Remove Legal and Administrative Barriers for internal migrant women, including by simplifying residence registration procedures and open centers for document processing with assistance for women with children.
Organise free vocational training and retraining courses for internal migrant women, tailored to urban labour market conditions.
Implement microcredit programs to support women interested in entrepreneurship.
Expand official employment opportunities through cooperation between local authorities and the private sector.

Marriage Migrants

Ensure independent residence status – regardless of marital relationship. Provide clear information and simplified procedures to prevent dependence on spouses. Offer stable and unconditional residence status to survivors of gender-based violence.
Expand support for survivors of violence – unconditional long-term stay, more counselors, shelters for women with children, and visa-neutral assistance.
Promote equal labour conditions – full-time employment, seniority pay, maternity protection, and fair wages. Guarantee equal opportunities and fair treatment in job creation. Enhance access to training and long-term career development for migrant women.
Institutionalise political representation – extend voting and candidacy rights, and introduce migrant representation quotas. Expand voting and candidacy rights for migrants. Introduce migrant quotas and diversity criteria in political parties.

14. Coordination and Collaboration between Origin and Destination Countries

Enhance diplomatic capacity and negotiation skill of origin country with country of destination.
Enhance government effort for prevention of exploitation, forced labour and trafficking and develop stronger intergovernmental collaboration.
Establish a government coordination group/task force between origin and destination countries to assess the issues within migration and provide resources and legal support to women who have been exploited or trafficked.

15. Capacity Building, Collective Empowerment and Networking

Reduce the Risks of Violence and Labour Exploitation, including by conducting awareness campaigns on labour rights and legal literacy.
Conduct community workshops and dialogues on labour rights, safe migration, and systemic discrimination.
Promote women-led networks and associations for advocacy and collective action.
Support evidence-based advocacy through documenting women migrants’ experiences.
Promote feminist solidarity and advocacy on women migrants.

16. GCM Implementation and Review

Implementation of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) should bridge the gap between policy and practice, particularly at national and local level. National policies should be responsive to the lived realities of migrant women and the government should conduct community-level awareness campaigns, pre-departure training, skills development, and coordination between government, embassies and international organisations to provide clear guidance, protection and recourse mechanisms. Strengthening enforcement, monitoring, awareness, and inclusive participation of women in decision-making are crucial to achieving the GCM’s objectives and ensuring safe, dignified and equitable migration.
Adapt GCM principles and objectives to local realities, ensuring that protections and rights-based approaches extend to internal migrants and marriage migrants.
Recognition of internal migration/displacement and marriage migration within migration governance and urged that national and local policies be aligned with GCM objectives to ensure no one is left behind.
Ensure meaningful participation of grassroots migrant women and migrant rights’ organisations at the GCM national, regional and international level, including by providing financial and technical support for more women migrants and migrant community representatives and by ensuring access to information and language interpretation for grassroots women migrants to participate meaningfully.

List of endorsing organisations:

Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD)
Asia Pacific Missions for Migrants (APMM)
GABRIELA, Alliance of Filipino Women
Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW)
International Migrants Alliance (IMA)
Migrante International
Mixed Migration Centre
Network for Protection of Women Migrants Rights (NPWMR)
Aastha Parivaar, India
Aerie International, Sri Lanka
Association of Indonesian Migrant Workers Families – Keluarga Besar Buruh Migran Indonesia (KABAR BUMI), Indonesia
Bangladeshi Ovibashi Mohila Sramik Association (BOMSA), Bangladesh
BERANDA MIGRAN, Indonesia
Family Frontiers, Malaysia
Filipino Migrant Workers Union, Hong Kong
Gabriela UAE
Ghamkhori, Tajikistan
GenDev Centre for Research and Innovation, India
Human Rights Advocacy Centre, Kyrgyzstan
Indonesian Migrant Workers Union (IMWU), Hong Kong
Koordinasi Purna Pekerja Migran Indonesia (KOPPMI), Indonesia
Korea Center for United Nations Human Rights Policy (KOCUN), South Korea
MAP Foundation, Thailand
Migrante Australia
National Alliance of Women Human Rights Defenders (NAWHRD), Nepal
National Indigenous Women Forum (NIWF), Nepal
POURAKHI, Nepal
Public Fund for Support of Youth and Women “Danko”, Kyrgyzstan
Public Foundation “JIPAR”, Kyrgyzstan
Ravnye Prava, Kyrgyzstan
Serve the People Association (SPA), Taiwan
Solidaritas Perempuan, Indonesia
Solidaritas Perempuan Sebay Lampung (SPSL), Indonesia
Tarangini Foundation, Nepal
Tenaganita, Malaysia
Women’s Rehabilitation Centre (WOREC), Nepal
Women of Agriculture Fergana Branch, Uzbekistan