A/RES/72/149
Violence against women migrant workers
26. Calls upon Governments, in cooperation with international organizations,
non-governmental organizations, the private sector and other stakeholders, to provide
women migrant workers who are victims of violence, irrespective of their migratory
status, in line with domestic legislation, access to the full range of emergency
assistance and protection and, to the extent possible, with gender-sensitive services
that are culturally and linguistically appropriate, which includes the provision of
information on the rights of women migrant workers, hotlines, dispute resolution
mechanisms, legal aid, victim advocacy, services for children, safety planning,
psychological support and trauma counselling, social services, women -only spaces
and access to women’s shelters, where these exist, in accordance with relevant
international human rights instruments and applicable conventions;
27. Also calls upon Governments to ensure that legislative provisions and
judicial processes are in place to provide women migrant workers access to justice,
to enhance, develop or maintain legal frameworks and specific gender-sensitive
policies to explicitly meet their needs and rights and, where necessary, to take
appropriate steps to reform existing legislation and policies to capture their needs and
protect their rights;
28. Further calls upon Governments, in particular those of the countries of
origin and destination, to put in place penal and criminal sanctions, in order to punish
perpetrators of violence against women migrant workers and intermediaries, and
gender-sensitive redress and justice mechanisms that victims can ac cess effectively
and that allow their views and concerns to be presented and considered at appropriate
stages of proceedings, including other measures that will allow victims to be present
during the judicial process, when possible, and to protect women mi grant workers
who are victims of violence from revictimization, including by authorities;
29. Urges all States to adopt and implement effective measures to put an end
to the arbitrary arrest and detention of women migrant workers and to take action to
prevent and punish any form of illegal deprivation of the liberty of women migrant
workers by individuals or groups;
30. Encourages Governments to formulate, implement and refine training
programmes for their law enforcement officials, immigration officers a nd border
officials, diplomatic and consular officials, judiciary, prosecutors, public sector
medical staff and other service providers, with a view to sensitizing those public
sector workers to the issue of violence against women migrant workers and impar ting
to them the necessary skills and attitude to ensure the delivery of proper, professional
and gender-sensitive interventions, including for those in detention facilities;
31. Also encourages Governments to promote coherence between migration,
labour and anti-trafficking policies and programmes concerning women migrant
workers, based on a human rights, gender-sensitive and people-centred perspective,
to ensure that the human rights of women migrant workers are protected throughout
the migration process and to enhance efforts to prevent violence against women
migrant workers, prosecute perpetrators and protect and support victims and their
families;
32. Calls upon States, in accordance with the provisions of article 36 of the
Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 34 to ensure that, if a woman migrant
worker is arrested or committed to prison or custody pending trial, or is detained in
any other manner, the competent authorities respect her freedom to communicate with
and have access to the consular officials of the country of her nationality and, in this
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