Input to the Co-Facilitators
of the Zero Draft of
2nd IMRF Progress Declaration

Prepared by Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development

2nd IMRF Progress Declaration: APWLD’s Input to the Co-Facilitators of the Zero Draft

Acknowledgement

  1. This submission is a consolidation of priority issues and recommendations of women migrants within and from Asia Pacific Region. 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 37 migrants’ rights organisations from more than 16 countries in the Asia Pacific region. See the joint statement for reference.  

Context

  1. Since the adoption of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) in 2018, the progress in its implementation to achieve the 23 objectives remains slow and uneven. There has been an imbalance between the demand for and availability of regular migration pathways, with many existing channels being restrictive, costly and inadequate, pushing migrants towards irregular and riskier alternatives, highlighting the barriers and challenges faced by migrants and the members of their families left behind, including children. 
  2. The root causes and structural drivers of migration remain largely unaddressed, particularly the compounding effects of economic hardship and poverty, chronic unemployment, low wages, budget cut on salaries, landlessness, limited access to property, education, skills, and lack of opportunities in home countries. Furthermore, migration is frequently a response to deep-seated social pressures–such as patriarchal norms, forced and early marriage, caste- and class-based discrimination – which compel individuals to support the family economy at any cost. These issues are further exacerbated by neoliberal development policies that facilitate land grabbing and worsen climate change, alongside political conflicts that  continue to cause the loss of livelihood and the displacement of  people or even entire communities from their homes. 
  3. Unsafe and irregular migration pathways continue to emerge in the context of increased restrictions and barriers within regular migration routes, and lead to criminalisation of migration. The lack of centralised information and access to proper resources and knowledge as well as access to meaningful participation for migrants, particularly women migrants, heighten the vulnerabilities of women migrants to gender-based violence, wage theft, rights violations, and exploitation across the migration journey – during transit, at the workplace, and upon return. In addition, throughout the migration journey, women migrants have limited access to services and social protection, including lack of shelter, psycho-social support,  legal services and consulate support with no proper mechanism or access to justice. 
  4. Progress in implementing the GCM remains hindered by its status as a non-binding agreement. Without robust enforcement mechanisms with no  proper mechanism or indicators supported by migrants to  monitor or review, member states lack the necessary aspects and accountability to drive the implementation and review process. Systemic barriers to the meaningful participation of migrants, particularly women, grassroots and marginalised migrants have led to the lack of migrants’ voices and representation throughout the GCM implementation and review processes and creating critical gaps that undermine the advancement of human rights of all migrants. 
  5. It is crucial that migrants, especially women, are acknowledged as the key stakeholders. Their meaningful participation is essential to shaping the policies that impact them and to identify and propose ways to  address the issues, gaps and opportunities within the GCM framework. 

Inputs on the Implementation of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, also contributing to the Zero Draft of the 2nd IMRF Progress Declaration

  1. The Zero Draft of the Progress Declaration appropriately reaffirms the commitment to the GCM and its objectives based on the ten cross-cutting and interdependent guiding principles. However, several critical gaps and challenges remain unaddressed. To move from policy to practice, future implementation of the GCM must be more responsive to local realities, particularly the lived experiences of migrant women and adapted through national and local policies. We urge governments to prioritise community-level awareness and gender-responsive policies. We call upon the Co-Facilitators of the 2nd IMRF, the UN Secretary General, Member States and all stakeholders to consider and integrate our specific inputs and recommendations into the final Progress Declaration to ensure a more inclusive and effective implementation and review processes of the GCM.
  2. The Progress Declaration must include concrete actions and measures to eliminate the structural causes and drivers of forced migration. Addressing the root causes that compel women to leave their countries of origin is a pivotal step in advancing the human rights of all women migrants. Concrete actions and measures must ensure that development, trade, investment, and climate 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.
  3. The notion to integrate migration into the Sustainable Development Agenda, should be in line with the effort to ensure effective implementation of migration policies based on international human and labour rights standards, noting the role of women migrants as agents of sustainable development and as rights holders. The Progress Declaration should include the commitment to ratify and implement treaties and convention related to women and migration to ensure the rights and safety of women migrants, including but not limited to 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.
  4. The Progress Declaration highlights the commitment to integrate gender perspective across all national migration systems. This should include the recognition and protection of women migrants’ rights and women migrants’ work by guaranteeing equal pay for equal work and fair wages across all sectors; recognising and establishing domestic, care, and unpaid labour as socially and economically valuable work; ensuring access to social security, healthcare, and safe working conditions for women migrants, including protecting pregnant and postpartum women among labor migrants; ensuring the necessary protection of women migrants’ rights in countries affected by military conflict; recognising the socio-economic contribution of women migrants, both in host and home country; ensuring the protection of women migrants’ remittances, including access to their financials; and ensuring women’s access to information and meaningful participation in policy making processes related to migration.
  5. The Progress Declaration highlights progress in strengthening access to legal identity and documentation, including the expansion of civil registration and national identity systems, contributing to wider and more equitable access to essential documentation for migrants and returnees. However, it failed to address the issues and challenges related to legal identity and work permit or residency status faced by migrants working in the informal sector, such as domestic work, as well as by marriage migrants, particularly women. The dependency of migrants on employers or spouses for their legal identity and/or residency status creates significant barriers to accessing basic and essential services, decent work and safe  living conditions. This precariousness is especially acute for those in vulnerable situations, such as individuals experiencing exploitation, abuse, or marital separation or divorce.  Providing clear information and simplified procedures for independent legal identity and documentation as well as residency status are most needed by migrants, especially women, to prevent dependency on private employers and spouses in accessing services.  Furthermore, significant policy reforms are needed to grant all workers, including women domestic workers, the right to change employers, ensuring their labour rights are protected.
  6. The Progress Declaration failed to address the issues of legal protection and services, access to justice, and freedom of association and expression of women migrants, including migrant workers and marriage migrants. Member states should commit to ensure legal services and access to justice mechanisms are available at the local level, and that there are migrant and women friendly complaint mechanisms which allow workers to report violations safely and effectively. Free interpretation services for or all migrant workers during legal and administrative proceedings should be provided. All migrant workers should be included in the labour ordinance of home and host countries and  have the same rights as local workers in regards to forming and membership of unions and to express freely. 
  7. The Progress Declaration underscores the critical importance of providing support for sustainable reintegration as a means of ensuring that migrants can reintegrate effectively and contribute their knowledge and skills to their societies and local economies. This should include the commitment to establish comprehensive gender-responsive socio-economic reintegration policies and institutional measures. This must include the establishment of dedicated government programs or departments for returnee migrant women’s reintegration, the integration of reintegration support, including agency building, into local development plans that are backed by gender-sensitive budgeting, and the rigorous monitoring and evaluation of these reintegration programs to ensure they effectively meet women’s specific needs.
  8. The Progress Declaration acknowledges concerns regarding private sector accountability for abuses, but fails to commit to ensuring the accountability of the private sector within the recruitment and employment system, as well as in travel or migration services. Member states must ensure the accountability of the private sector across all migration systems and ensure effective mechanisms for access to justice for women migrants, including by strengthening monitoring and accountability for cases of labour exploitation and violence against women, alongside strong and accessible grievance and compensation systems available in the diverse languages of the  migrants. 
  9. The Progress Declaration failed to address the gaps within International Migration Policies and Governance of the issues of marriage migrants and internal migrants. The GCM has yet to cover the unique challenges faced by women marriage migrants, such as women’s residency status which is tied not only to the continuity of marriage, but also to whether they are fulfilling caregiving roles within the family. The framing of the GCM is mostly labour-centred, which does not cover the specificities of gendered migration pathways such as marriage and care migration, thus leaving marriage migrants outside key protections related to decent work, abuse and exploitation prevention. In addition, internal migrants also face similar issues, but remain unaddressed within the existing migration policies. Internal migrants also face difficulties in understanding languages, forcing them to accept  low-paid and informal work (trade, food service, home sewing, domestic work) without social protection and access to registration at place of residence, which deprives them of access to healthcare, education, housing and social services. The Progress Declaration must explicitly recognise and include marriage migration and internal migration within the GCM implementation framework. These migration flows warrant targeted protections and dedicated policy considerations. Furthermore, we urge the alignment of national and local policies with GCM objectives to ensure that implementation is truly inclusive and that no migrant is left behind.  
  10. The Progress Declaration also failed to address the systemic barriers to meaningful participation of migrants, particularly grassroots and marginalised migrants throughout the GCM implementation and review processes, in particular at the international level. We urge the United Nations and Member states to institutionalise the meaningful participation of grassroots migrant women and migrant rights’ organisations across the national, regional and international levels of the GCM. This requires dedicated financial and technical resources to support the engagement of women migrants and migrant community representatives. We call for transparent  access to information and comprehensive language interpretation to ensure that marginalised voices of grassroots women migrants are not only present but heart and integrated across all the processes.

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1. Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) is a feminist, membership-driven network. Our member represents over 300 diverse women’s rights organisations and advocates from 32 countries and territories in Asia and the Pacific. APWLD is working closely with the members in advancing the human rights of women migrants and building the feminist grassroots movement. See https://apwld.org/ 

2. UN ESCAP, Report on the Second Asia-Pacific Regional Review of Implementation of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, Annex 3: Chairs’ Summary, Para.5, https://www.unescap.org/sites/default/d8files/event-documents/GCM_2025.5_E.pdf