Violence Against Women Migrant Workers

A/RES/62/132View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 63a Advancement of women, published in 2008.

What other versions does this mandate have?

19 versions · 1994–2025

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/80/185

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2025	A/RES/80/185	Violence against women migrant workers	6,874	93%Compare
2023	A/RES/78/180	Violence against women migrant workers	6,861	89%Compare
2022	A/RES/76/141	Violence against women migrant workers	6,155	94%Compare
2020	A/RES/74/127	Violence against women migrant workers	5,878	80%Compare
2018	A/RES/72/149	Violence against women migrant workers	5,368	81%Compare

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

11 reports · 2005–2025

Year	Symbol	Title	Mandate resolution
2025	A/80/317	Violence against women migrant workers report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/78/180
2023	A/78/292	Violence against women migrant workers report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/76/141
2021	A/76/245	Violence against women migrant workers report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/74/127
2019	A/74/235	Violence against women migrant workers report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/72/149
2017	A/72/215	Violence against women migrant workers report of the Secretary-General	A/RES/70/130

What’s in this document?

18 operative paragraphs

Takes note with appreciation of the report of the Secretary-General;⁸

⁸A/62/177.

Encourages Member States to consider signing and ratifying or acceding to relevant International Labour Organization conventions and 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,⁹ the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime,¹⁰ and the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime,¹¹ as well as all human rights treaties that contribute to the protection of the rights of women migrant workers;

⁹United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 2220, No. 39481.

¹⁰Ibid., vol. 2237, No. 39574.

¹¹Ibid., vol. 2241, No. 39574.

Takes note of the reports of the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on the human rights of migrants¹² and the Special Rapporteur of the Council on violence against women, its causes and consequences,¹³ with regard to violence against women migrant workers, and encourages all special rapporteurs whose mandates relate to the subject of violence against women migrant workers to address the issue of violence against women migrant workers and their human rights, in particular the problems of gender-based violence and discrimination, as well as trafficking in women;

¹²A/HRC/4/24 and Add.1–3.

¹³A/HRC/4/34 and Add.1–4.

Notes the findings contained in the World Survey on the Role of Women in Development, 2004: Women and International Migration,¹⁴ including its recommendations for concrete actions aimed at helping to empower migrant women, including women migrant workers, and reducing their vulnerability to abuse;

¹⁴A/59/287 and Add.1; see also United Nations publication, Sales No. E.04.IV.4.

Requests all Governments to continue to cooperate fully with the Special Rapporteurs mentioned in paragraph 3 above in the performance of their tasks and mandated duties, including by making available to them requested information on violence against women migrant workers and by reacting promptly to their urgent appeals, and encourages Governments to give serious consideration to inviting them to visit their countries;

Calls upon all Governments to incorporate a human rights and gender perspective in legislation and policies on international migration and on labour and employment, inter alia, for the prevention and protection of migrant women from violence and discrimination, exploitation and abuse, and to take effective measures to ensure that these do not reinforce discrimination and bias against women;

Calls upon Governments to adopt or strengthen measures to protect the human rights of women migrant workers, regardless of their immigration status, including in policies that regulate the recruitment and deployment of women migrant workers, and to consider expanding dialogue among States on devising innovative methods to promote legal channels of migration, inter alia, in order to deter illegal migration;

Urges Governments to enhance bilateral, regional, interregional and international cooperation to address violence against women migrant workers, fully respecting international law, including international human rights law, as well as to strengthen efforts in reducing the vulnerability of women migrant workers, including by fostering sustainable development alternatives to migration in countries of origin;

Also urges Governments to adopt or strengthen measures to promote and protect the human rights of migrant girls, including unaccompanied girls, regardless of their immigration status, to prevent their labour and economic exploitation, discrimination, sexual harassment, violence and sexual abuse in the workplace, including domestic work;

Further urges Governments, in cooperation with international organizations, civil society, including non-governmental organizations, and the private sector, to strengthen the focus on and funding support for the prevention of violence against women migrant workers, in particular by promoting the access of women to meaningful and gender-sensitive information and education on, inter alia, the costs and benefits of migration, rights and benefits to which they are entitled in the countries of origin and employment, overall conditions in countries of employment and procedures for legal migration, as well as to ensure that laws and policies governing recruiters, employers and intermediaries promote adherence to and respect for the human rights of migrant workers, particularly women;

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 with the full range of immediate assistance and protection, such as access to counselling, legal and consular assistance and temporary shelter, as well as mechanisms to allow the views and concerns of victims to be presented and considered at appropriate stages of proceedings, including other measures that will allow victims to be present during the judicial process, to the extent possible, as well as to establish reintegration and rehabilitation schemes for returning women migrant workers;

Also calls upon Governments, in particular those of the countries of origin and destination, to put in place penal and criminal sanctions to punish perpetrators and intermediaries of violence against women migrant workers, and redress and justice mechanisms that victims can access effectively, as well as to ensure that migrant women victims of violence do not suffer from re-victimization, including by authorities;

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;

Encourages Governments to formulate and implement training programmes for their law enforcers, immigration officers and border officials, prosecutors and 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;

Invites Governments, the United Nations system and other concerned intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations to cooperate towards a better understanding of the issues concerning women and international migration, and to improve the collection, dissemination and analysis of sex- and age-disaggregated data and information in order to assist in the formulation of migration and labour policies that are, inter alia, gender-sensitive and that protect human rights, as well as to aid in policy assessment;

Encourages concerned Governments, in particular those of the countries of origin, transit and destination, to avail themselves of the expertise of the United Nations, including the Statistics Division of the Secretariat, the United Nations Development Fund for Women and the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, to develop appropriate national data-collection and analysis methodologies that will generate comparable data and tracking and reporting systems on violence against women migrant workers;

Encourages the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women to continue its work on a general recommendation on the situation of women migrant workers;

Requests the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly at its sixty-fourth session on the problem of violence against women migrant workers and on the implementation of the present resolution, taking into account updated information from the organizations of the United Nations system, in particular the International Labour Organization, the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Development Fund for Women, the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, as well as the reports of the Special Rapporteurs mentioned in paragraph 3 above, and other relevant sources, such as the International Organization for Migration, including non-governmental organizations.

Violence Against Women Migrant Workers

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What other versions does this mandate have?

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

Table of contents