Resident Coordinator's remarks for the launch of PROTECT: Ensuring Decent Work and Reducing Vulnerabilities for Women and Children in the Context of Labour Migration in Southeast Asia

Ambassador David Daly;

Inspector General MOL Khun Santi;

EU, government and UN colleagues;

It is my honor to join you at the launch of PROTECT. 

This three-year initiative in partnership with the EU will advance the agenda of protecting vulnerable migrant women and children in Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Let me thank Ambassador Daly for his personal commitment to promoting the universal values of decent work and the rights of women and children to leave no one behind.

Khun Santi, I would also like to commend the Ministry of Labor for their leadership in championing the cause of migrant workers in country through a whole-of-government approach.

For this initiative the UN brings to bear its cutting-edge value-add by leveraging its broad range of expertise through a whole-of-UN approach.

Collectively agencies such as ILO, UN Women, UNODC and UNICEF can facilitate transformative changes for migrants in line with the SDGs. 

In ASEAN almost 11 million people are on the move.

This means countries of origin and destination need to come together strategically to protect and promote the rights of migrants, particularly women and children.

Safe migration with decent work enriches ASEAN by promoting sustainable growth and raising living standards for millions of households, especially the most disadvantaged. 

This contributes to the acceleration of SDGs across ASEAN where SDG progress has been more robust than the global average. 

By protecting migrant women and children, who are especially vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, ASEAN will also be taking a leading role globally.

To inform PROTECT, we will draw on lessons learned through trilateral partnerships with the EU, ASEAN and UN on migrant rights. 

These lessons involve filling policy gaps,

expanding social security,

engaging the private sector on due diligence,

and harnessing social media for positive narratives on migration.

Importantly, strengthening labor migration governance frameworks, expanding digitized labor contracts, boosting mutual recognition of skills and reducing visa fees will serve as enablers for orderly and safe migration. 

We have also learned that expanding social security to migrant workers can guarantee their rights.

Khun Santi, Thailand stands as a good example for this as your ministry is taking policy measures to bring workers in the wholesale, manufacturing, transport, and domestic sectors within the fold of the social security fund. 

Equally important is to bring the private sector into dialogues on human rights due diligence. 

This enables the creation of safe and decent work spaces with an emphasis on women, especially in industries where they are at risk of exploitation such as farming, fishing and construction.

Finally, in today’s world social media is critical for shaping public opinions on migration and migrant rights.

That is why we will need to deepen our partnerships with tech-savvy young people, the stakeholders of the future, to combat negative stereotypes. 

PROTECT will be taking these lessons on board as it builds on Safe and Fair, a five-year initiative that concluded last year. 

Safe and Fair has benefitted 420,000 women migrants and their families through improved access to information and services. 

PROTECT will be taking interventions to the next level. This is critical as nearly half of all migrant workers are women while another 1.3 million are children. 

Despite progress in recent years, many women migrants and their children remain vulnerable. They are also at greater risk of being trafficked, sexually exploited and forced to commit online scams and financial fraud. 

Ambassador Daly, we are inaugurating PROTECT in Thailand and when I take over as Resident Coordinator in Indonesia next month I will be looking to launch this initiative there by drawing on some lessons from Thailand.

I will also be working to deepen exchanges between Indonesia and Thailand — two countries leading from the front in ASEAN.

Importantly, three of participating countries in PROTECT are champions for the Global Compact for Migration, which provides us with a framework for orderly and safe migration.

Their collaborations through PROTECT will be transformative and I am hoping to take lessons learned from ASEAN to the global stage.

Thank you.