A/HRC/44/42 rights. These include their rights to life, to seek basic services such as legal assistance, health care, housing and education, to protection from human traffickers, smugglers and gender-based violence, to information, to seek asylum, to fair working conditions and to the freedoms of expression and of assembly and freedom from discrimination. 25. Protecting migrants’ civic freedoms is of particular importance, as many migrants cannot effectively exercise their political rights in their country of destination. Thus denuded of their electoral rights, migrants find themselves excluded from a significant means of influencing the policies that shape their lives and have few ways to remedy improper limitations on their freedoms. 26. The need to protect migrants’ freedom of association will only increase as migration flows grow and become more diverse. According to the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations, the upward trend of international migration continued with 272 million people migrating in 2019, an increase of 51 million from 2010. 1 Migrants comprise 3.5 per cent of the global population. Women and girls comprised 48 per cent of migrants in 2019. Some 74 per cent of international migrants are of working age, between 20 and 64 years old. In 2018, migrant remittances reached an estimated US$ 688 billion globally. During the first half of 2018, an estimated 879,600 claims for asylum were lodged globally.2 27. In general, migrants are more vulnerable than local workers to exploitation and abuse in the workplace and have fewer options for vindicating their rights or protecting themselves from violations of their rights (A/HRC/26/35, paras. 18–19). In particular, the inability of migrants to exercise their right to freedom of association has a serious effect on their leverage to change the conditions of employment or other social conditions that entrench poverty, fuel inequality and limit democracy. 28. Recent trends have stripped the crucial right to freedom of association, key to countering the power of Governments, employers and the private sector, from both migrants and the civil society organizations that support them. Not only are migrants often unable to form or join associations to advocate for themselves; they are also denied basic humanitarian or human rights assistance from civil society organizations that themselves may be threatened, harassed, intimidated, stigmatized and even criminalized by the authorities for providing migrants with the means to survive. B. International human rights framework on the right to freedom of association of migrants 29. The right to freedom of association is a fundamental human right enshrined in article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and in various other international human rights instruments. 30. The protection for free association guaranteed under article 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is expansive. Article 22 (1) provides that everyone shall have the right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of his or her interests. 31. In accordance with article 22 (2) of the Covenant, no restrictions may be placed on the exercise of the right to free association other than those imposed in conformity with the law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order, the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. Any limitation on the freedom of association must be in accordance with the principle of legality, serve a legitimate public purpose, and be a necessary and proportionate means of achieving that purpose within a democratic society (see Human Rights Council resolution 15/21 and A/HRC/20/27, para. 15). The principle of 1 2 4 See www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/publications/wallchart/docs /MigrationStock2019_Wallchart.pdf. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, International Labour Organization (ILO), International Organization for Migration and Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), “2019 international migration and displacement trends and policies report to the G20”, p. 3.