Task Force on ASEAN Migrant Workers
Connecting Migrant Workers in ASEAN
The Task Force on ASEAN Migrant Workers comprises trade unions, human rights and migrant rights non-governmental organisations, and migrant worker associations. It is aimed at supporting the development of a rights-based framework for the protection and promotion of the rights of migrant workers, in line with ASEAN's Vientiane Action Plan.
The Task Force welcomes the ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers as an important step forward to protect the human and labour rights of migrant workers within the ASEAN region.
The Taskforce is proposing an ASEAN Framework on Migrant Workers which focuses on implementing Core Labor Rights, Terms of Employment, and specific rights related to migrant workers and their families.
The Taskofrce views that migrant labor is not a commodity but concerns human beings and human activity. From this perspective, migrant workers are seen as human beings with rights and dignity.
The Taskforce calls on ASEAN to uphold and implement the highest standards in labor rights including decent work and occupational health and safety standards, equal pay for equal work, freedom of association/right to form and join trade unions and associations, social security based on non-discrimination and gender equality principles.
ASEAN includes both major labor importing countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Brunei, and major exporting countries like the Philippines, Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Vietnam. In accordance with the Vientiane Action Plan (VAP), the ASEAN Labour Ministers will soon begin discussions on the elaboration of an ASEAN Instrument on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers.
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