A/71/285
64. The Special Rapporteur recommends that States develop and incentivize
accessible, regular, safe and affordable migration channels at all skill levels and
consider a variety of options for regular migration, such as humanita rian visas,
temporary protection, family reunification, work permits at all skill levels, as well
as for migration for job seeking, student mobility and medical evacuation. States
can also increase the number of migrants admitted under existing regular mig ration
schemes, including for seasonal workers and student visas.
65. The Special Rapporteur underlines that it is important for States to ensure
inclusive processes that allow for a robust public debate, including through national
consultations, and that promote a better understanding of the needs of migrants in
terms of human and labour rights protection. This will allow States to develop more
targeted programmes and more suitable mobility options and to measure effective
progress for migrants, especially those who are socially marginalized, economically
excluded and politically invisible. Such processes and data collection will constitute
an important contribution to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
4.
Ensure that migration opportunities entail: the ethical recruitment of migrants;
reduction in the costs of migration; facilitation of the flow of remittances, and
increasing their productive use; enhancement of the transfer of skills and
knowledge; mutual recognition of skills and portability of acquired benefits, as
addressed in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda; and efforts by Member States to
counter the exploitative practices and the demand for services derived from the
exploitation of others, in line with international human rights and
labour standards
66. Abuses of the rights of migrant workers are not isolated incidents taking place
in a vacuum. First, unethical recruitment practices thrive in an environment in
which the prices of goods and services are dependent upon a supply of cheap labour.
Ethical recruiters struggle to compete within a system that has adapted to the
vicious cycle of wholesale exploitation and systematic suffering.
67. Second, the systematic use of exploitative labour is becoming part of the
conceptualization of economic development of both countries of origin and
destination. As countries accelerate their growth and build infrastructure based on
cheap labour, international migration of low-wage workers is embraced as a tool of
development without due attention to the human rights of mi grants themselves.
68. This can be seen, for example, in how temporary migration schemes are
frequently discussed, in international forums such as the Global Forum on
Migration and Development, as positive examples of flexible labour supply
responding quickly to economic demands, despite countless examples of built -in
structural precariousness and of negative human rights consequences.
69. Destination States accept and become complicit in this economic
normalization of the exploitation of migrant workers b ecause of a desire to remain
globally competitive. Countries of origin can also fail to negotiate adequate
protections for their nationals owing to power imbalances between countries.
Examples have been reported of countries of origin that have requested b etter
treatment for their nationals only to see the number of their citizens obtaining visas
as migrant workers drop.
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