The number of migrants headed to other countries in the ASEAN region has increased more than five-fold since 1990, reaching nearly 6.9 million a recent UN report states. Millions more are employed without legal status and are not captured in official data. “Despite rapid growth in the numbers of women and men migrating in South-East Asia, the outcomes for migrant workers are not well understood,” says Ben Harkins, ILO Technical Officer and lead author of the report. The study also identifies the need to increase access to skills development opportunities for migrant workers. Migrants who increased the skill level of their employment from before migration to after had much better long-term outcomes. “Skills development and validation in partnership with employers can help migrant workers move into jobs with better wages and working conditions, bolstering their economic contribution,” says Anna Platonova, IOM Thailand Senior Programme Manager.
Through improved livelihoods, labour migration can have a lasting impact on poverty reduction within ASEAN. “We found that the number of migrants living below the poverty line was reduced by 11% after return,” Platonova said. “That suggests that migration can be effective in decreasing
poverty within the region.”
The study-report was developed a Migration Outcomes Index (MOI) to measure changes in the lives of migrant workers from before to after their migration According to Harkins, “The MOI represents a break not only from the narrow focus on counting remittances but also from the human trafficking paradigm that is very dominant in South-East Asia. It offers a more nuanced assessment of migration experiences than just ‘trafficked or not trafficked.”
“There is a lot of emphasis placed on changing the behavior of migrants to prevent exploitation and abuse, particularly encouraging them to migrate through regular channels,” observes Harkins. “The thinking is that migrants are making risky decisions and that is putting them in harm’s way.”
But the data shows otherwise, “Our findings suggest that the problem is not that migrant workers are making the wrong choices but that they are very vulnerable to abuse regardless of their decisions. They are a group of workers to which a largely different set of rules apply. The risks are even greater for women migrants because their work is often undervalued and affords fewer labour protections.”
“What is most important for improving outcomes is ensuring that all migrants benefit from fundamental labour rights such as the minimum wage, including women and men employed in the informal economy.That requires changes to policy and practice by governments, employers, and recruitment agencies rather than to the behavior of migrant workers,” explains Harkins.
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