E/CN.4/2000/82 page 13 57. The situation of women migrant workers within most social structures is one of heightened marginalization, often exacerbated and implicitly condoned by the State (see E/CN.4/1997/47). 58. In this connection, at its fifty-fourth session, the General Assembly adopted, on 17 December 1999, its resolution 54/138, on violence against women migrant workers, in which it requested all Governments to cooperate with the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants in the performance of the duties mandated and to furnish promptly all the information requested. The General Assembly encouraged Governments, particularly those of countries of origin and destination, to share information on violence against women migrant workers with the Special Rapporteur with a view to requesting her to recommend concrete measures and actions to address the problem. 59. In astonishingly large numbers, women are migrating great distances across international boundaries to engage in poorly remunerated labour that isolates them in a subordinate position in a private realm. As a result, they are exposed to acute risks of physical or psychological violence and, often, to expropriation of their economic gains. 60. The lack of protection and regulations governing informal labour is at the origin of women migrant workers’ dependence on their employer. Because of that lack, women often lose their right to reside in the host country if they leave their employer, even in cases of ill-treatment. In many countries, migrant workers are not permitted to change their employers, and the woman worker who finds herself in that situation is compelled to stay with her employer until either she leaves the country or is granted the right to legal residence status. 61. Women migrants, particularly domestic workers, are usually unable to escape from a situation of ill-treatment because they have no legal status. Mechanisms of support and assistance for women workers in violent situations exist in some countries of destination but are often inaccessible to women migrants because they do not speak the language, lack mobility or do not know that such organizations exist. 62. Many of these women workers seek protection at the embassies of their home countries, but some of these do not have adequate facilities or programmes to take care of them. The most frequently cited factors which “restrict women migrants’ ability to leave situations of forced labour [are] (a) the lack of alternate employment; (b) the lack of legal literacy, particularly in regard to workers’ rights; (c) the financial obligations to her family and their dependence on her income; (d) the lack of financial resources; (e) the fear of deportation; (f) restrictions on her movement; (g) the lack of identity papers; (h) the fear of arrest; (i) violence by traffickers and employers; (j) debt bondage and the often concurrent fear of retaliation against her family for not paying debts; and (k) the fear of reprisals” (E/CN.4/1997/47, para. 133). 63. The kinds of abuse and violence suffered by women migrant workers include the withholding of their wages, acts of physical and sexual violence, undernourishment, the seizure of their passports, and the lack of medical and health care. 64. According to the most recent estimates, there are today about 130 million international or “non-national” migrants in the world. Women account for 50 per cent of this figure, although