Violence against women migrant workers
A/RES/68/137
workers, and calls upon States to promptly investigate and punish all violations of
their rights;
14. 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
immigration status, in line with domestic legislation, with the full range of
emergency assistance and protection and, to the extent possible, gender-sensitive
services that are culturally and linguistically appropriate, in accordance with
relevant international human rights instruments and applicable conventions;
15. Also calls upon Governments to ensure that legislative provisions and
judicial processes are in place for women’s access to justice, to enhance, develop or
maintain legal frameworks and specific gender-sensitive policies to explicitly meet
the needs and rights of women migrant workers and to take appropriate steps to
reform existing legislation and policies to capture their needs and protect their
rights;
16. 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 access
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 migrant workers who are victims of violence from revictimization, including
by authorities;
17. Urges all States to adopt 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;
18. Encourages Governments to formulate and implement training
programmes for their law enforcement officials, immigration officers and 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
imparting to them the necessary skills and attitude to ensure the delivery of proper,
professional and gender-sensitive interventions;
19. 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;
20. Calls upon States, in accordance with the provisions of article 36 of the
Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 22 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
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