Human Rights of Migrants

Calls upon States to ensure that their migration legislation, policies and practices are consistent with international human rights law and to promote the enjoyment of human rights by all migrants without discrimination of any kind, including by reviewing migration legislation, policies and practices with a view to preventing their possible negative consequences during all stages of migration, inter alia, the creation and exacerbation of vulnerabilities, which could result in death, disappearances, exploitation, trafficking in persons, torture, sexual or gender-based violence or any other form of violence, including violence based on religion or belief or violence based on race, or other violations or abuses of human rights;

Also calls upon States to work with national human rights institutions or, where existent, national mechanisms for independent human rights monitoring of all aspects of migration and border governance, civil society organizations, migrants and their family members, and other relevant stakeholders to understand, prevent, promptly and thoroughly investigate and address violations and abuses of human rights against migrants during all stages of migration caused or exacerbated by the lack or inadequate implementation of preventive measures to protect human rights, or by migration policies and practices lacking a human rights-based approach;

Encourages States to establish and strengthen comprehensive legal frameworks that safeguard the human rights of migrants, including measures to prevent pushbacks and collective expulsions, and to provide access to fair and efficient asylum procedures and to other forms of regular stay for migrants in vulnerable situations, in accordance with international law obligations;

Also encourages States to adopt gender-, disability- and age-responsive approaches for the prevention of, or effective responses to, human rights violations and abuses against migrants, including migrants in transit, addressing the specific needs of women and girls and persons in situations of vulnerability, especially persons with disabilities, children and older persons, including for their protection from all forms of violence, exploitation and abuse;

Urges States to take decisive action to put an end to all forms of discrimination against migrants, including racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, in helping to prevent violations and abuses of human rights against them, and to actively engage with all relevant stakeholders in national and global efforts to counter growing dehumanizing and harmful narratives about migration and migrants, in accordance with international human rights law, and to shift to human rights-based and evidence-based narratives;

Calls upon States to adopt and implement legislation, policies and programmes that effectively address inequality, structural and societal dynamics and multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, which hinder the enjoyment of human rights by migrants, in accordance with international human rights law obligations, ensuring access to justice and remedies for victims, and to promote human-rights based and evidence-based narratives on migration;

Also calls upon all States to refrain from conducting or sponsoring disinformation or misinformation campaigns, including those online, targeting migrants domestically or transnationally for political or other purposes, and encourages them to condemn such acts, while recognizing the importance of safeguarding media pluralism and respecting and protecting the right to freedom of expression, which includes the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds;

Urges States to facilitate an environment supportive of countering disinformation and misinformation against migrants, regardless of their migration status, and engage in public awareness and education campaigns through multidimensional and multi-stakeholder responses that are evidence-based and comply with international human rights law, including through enhanced cooperation with international organizations, civil society, including migrants and migrant-led organizations, local governments, the media, the private sector and other stakeholders;

Calls upon States to develop comprehensive public policies, including a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach, placing the rights of migrants at the centre of migration governance, promoting social cohesion and inclusion and working in collaboration with migrants, migrant-led organizations and migrant communities to collect and disseminate data on their positive contribution to sociocultural, civic and economic development and intercultural dialogue, emphasizing our shared humanity and the obligation to respect and protect human rights;

Encourages States to provide adequate documentation to enable access to pathways for safe and regular migration as a measure to preserve human dignity, ensure access to basic rights and prevent exploitation and trafficking;

Urges States to adopt measures to prevent deaths, disappearances, acts of torture, sexual and gender-based violence and all other forms of violence, including violence based on religion or belief and violence based on race, excessive use of force against migrants, pushback practices, collective expulsions and refoulement, in accordance with international human rights law obligations, and to ensure that all human rights violations and abuses are subject to independent and transparent investigations and that perpetrators are held accountable;

Also urges States to adopt effective measures to prevent, investigate and punish any form of arbitrary deprivation of liberty of migrants, including migrant children, within their territory or subject to their jurisdiction;

Further urges States to put an end to arbitrary arrest and detention, and encourages States to pursue alternatives to detention that are consistent with human rights, noting the measures that have been successfully implemented by some States, and to work towards ending the detention of migrant children;

Calls upon States to strengthen measures to protect the human rights of migrant children, especially those unaccompanied, ensuring that the best interests of the child are a primary consideration in their legislation, policies and practices, including on integration, return and family reunification;

Encourages States to develop, where appropriate, effective and accessible family reunification procedures that allow children to migrate in a regular manner and to facilitate access to procedures for family reunification for migrants at all skill levels without discrimination, through appropriate measures and in accordance with national laws and applicable obligations under international law;

Calls upon States to protect migrants from becoming victims of national and transnational organized crime, including kidnapping, smuggling of migrants, trafficking in persons, child labour, contemporary forms of slavery and forced labour, inter alia, by preventing, investigating, prosecuting and penalizing the smuggling of migrants and by preventing, combating and eradicating trafficking in persons, through the implementation of programmes and policies that prevent victimization and provide effective guarantees and protections, as well as access to medical, psychosocial and legal assistance to victims of trafficking, where appropriate, and not to criminalize migrants for the fact of having been the object of the crime of smuggling in accordance with the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air;

Encourages States to develop, strengthen and implement national laws and to monitor their implementation, to prevent violations and abuses of human rights against migrant workers, including cases of forced and child labour, to promote, respect and fulfil internationally recognized labour rights for all migrant workers, including freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, to cooperate with relevant stakeholders, including employers, to build partnerships that promote conditions for decent work, prevent abuse and exploitation and to engage actively with the International Labour Organization and relevant international organizations in this regard, and to promote faster, safer and cheaper transfer of remittances;

Calls upon States to ensure the rapid and accurate identification and referral of migrants who may be in a situation of vulnerability at international borders, to provide assistance and relief to migrants in distress, regardless of their migration status, and to create a safe and enabling environment in which humanitarian actors that provide such assistance can operate free from hindrance and insecurity, including to the effect that domestic law and administrative provisions and their application facilitate the work of all actors providing humanitarian assistance to and defending the human rights of migrants in transit, inter alia by avoiding their criminalization and stigmatization, impediments or obstruction to them or restrictions thereon, contrary to international human rights law;

Encourages States to facilitate access for their nationals to consular assistance and services, in accordance with applicable obligations under international law, as well as to information, protection, documentation and legal support;

Calls upon States to ensure that all border governance measures, including those employing new and emerging digital technologies, comply with obligations under international human rights law and have adequate safeguards to protect the dignity, privacy and safety of migrants, to adopt specific measures to prevent the violation of human rights and abuses against migrants while in transit, including in ports and airports, at borders and other transit areas for migration, including by strengthening mechanisms to assess individual human rights situations and referring migrants to appropriate services and protection bodies, and encouraging the establishment of monitoring mechanisms, and to adequately train public officials and others who work in those facilities and in border areas to treat migrants respectfully and in accordance with their obligations under international human rights law;

Encourages States to ensure that agreements that regulate the arrival of migrants, transfer asylum processing beyond their borders or allow readmissions or expulsions to third countries are fully aligned with States’ obligations under international law, including human rights law, and that such agreements include binding safeguards, are based on good faith and shared responsibility among States, and are subject to periodic human rights impact assessments as well as accessible complaint and redress mechanisms to strengthen transparency;

Also encourages States to strengthen cooperation, information exchange and coordination at all levels, including between countries of origin, transit and destination, and with international humanitarian organizations, civil society organizations and migrants and their families, in order to prevent and investigate human rights violations and abuses against migrants in transit, to find and identify missing migrants, including through the use of digital technologies, and to ensure accountability for victims;

Further encourages States to include, as appropriate, information on the implementation of their international obligations related to the human rights of migrants in their national reports to the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights Council and to the treaty bodies;

Encourages States that have not done so to consider signing and ratifying or acceding to the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families as a matter of priority;

Requests the Office of the High Commissioner:

Calls upon international and non-governmental organizations to exercise human rights due diligence when implementing projects in externalization contexts, ensure that their activities do not contribute to or benefit from human rights violations and take appropriate action, including disengagement, where risks cannot be mitigated effectively;

Calls upon business enterprises, including social media platforms, digital technology companies and developers, and private companies involved in migration governance, to conduct human rights due diligence in accordance with the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, as well as to consider the recommendations contained in the United Nations Global Principles for Information Integrity in order to, inter alia, prevent the spread of dehumanizing and harmful narratives, disinformation and misinformation and hate speech about migrants and migration;