Twenty years ago, the UN General Assembly adopted the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. Today, on International Migrants Day, the Solidarity Center joins the global labor movement’s campaign challenging countries to end abuse of migrants around the world by ratifying this convention.
The Solidarity Center works with unions, businesses, governments, and communities to create protection strategies for migrant workers that emphasize prevention, safe migration, victim protection, and rule of law. Below are links to some of our recent projects. Read more about the Solidarity Center’s Migration and Human Trafficking program.
No Justice for Migrant Workers in Thailand’s Shrimp Industry (2009). In this follow-up to the Solidarity Center’s 2008 report The True Cost of Shrimp, Solidarity Center program officer John A. Hosinski describes how the continued failure to charge and fully prosecute those who violate the rights of migrant workers in Thailand’s booming seafood processing industry denies justice to vulnerable migrants and constricts their ability to speak out publicly against the abuse.
“Slaves to Shrimp Industry” (Video). In this December 3, 2009, CNN report, shrimpers in New Orleans say that prices have been driven down by slave labor in Southeast Asia. The report mentions the Solidarity Center’s 2009 The True Cost of Shrimp.
Legal Clinic Helps Secure Burmese Migrant Worker Rights. With Solidarity Center support, the Mae Sot Labor Law Clinic handles referrals, counseling, representation of workers, and test cases for Burmese migrant workers in Thailand who face a wide range of worker and human rights abuses, including murder.
Train-the-Trainers Program Reaches Indonesian Communities.The Solidarity Center partnered with three Indonesian unions in an innovative train-the-trainers program that educated more than 225,000 workers and their families about safe migration and the dangers of trafficking and debt bondage.
Building Bridges from Asia to the Gulf States. Thousands of migrant workers from India and Nepal employed in the Gulf States end up abused and exploited, in debt to unscrupulous recruiters, their papers confiscated, unable to return home or find a better job. As part of a joint program aimed at supporting these workers at both ends of the migration process, a delegation of Solidarity Center senior staff and representatives of migrant worker and human rights organizations in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates traveled to India and Nepal.
Anti-Trafficking Activists Unite from Four Corners of the Globe. Recognizing that labor migration is a global phenomenon, the Solidarity Center brought migrant worker and human trafficking activists from four continents to the United States for an information exchange. “The issues we shared will go a long way in helping me deliver services and deal with issues of migrant labor and trafficking in persons for the workers whose rights have been violated,” a participant told the Solidarity Center.
Worker Rights and Migrant Workers (Chapter 4 of Justice for All : A Guide to Worker Rights in the Global Economy). In 30 pages, this chapter explores migration from the perspectives of its role in the global economy, the forces that drive it, government and employer strategies for utilizing and regulating it, the experiences of migrant workers themselves, and efforts to combat the abuse and exploitation that migrants often face, including human trafficking.
