Temporary Labor Migrants

According to The UN, “a migrant worker is defined as a ‘person who is to be engaged, is engaged, or has been engaged in a remunerated (paid) activity in a State of which he or she is not a national.’” This definition includes six primary categories: temporary labor migrants, highly skilled and business migrants, irregular migrants, forced migrants, family member migrants, and return migrants. Labour migrants travel outside of their country for short periods of time, to provide for families at home.

Highly-skilled and business migrants are usually sought by international companies in wealthy countries due to the migrants skill-level. Irregular migrants travel to find work without securing proper documents. Forced migrants leave their country because of external forces like wars or natural disasters. Family member migrants travel to reunite with family members who have already migrated. Return migrants have returned after working abroad for a period of time. All these workers need their rights preserved in an increasingly globalized world. This increase in migrants causes harm by altering the labor market in all involved countries and opening the door for potential exploitation through child labor or inssuficient wage payment.

In 2017, the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families reviewed the protection of the right of all migrant workers in Ecuador, Mexico, and Indonesia and recommended that the three countries implement the rights for all migrants in all businesses. Furthermore, the “Rights of Migrants in Action” was a global project focused on enforcing and promoting the rights of, and bettering access to services, for migrant domestic workers and victims of human trafficking, with them notably being the most vulnerable. The project has helped 43 civil society organizations to expand access.

This January, Ecuador led an initiative with four other countries at the United Nations for migrant workers to be able to request the protection of their rights. Ecuador has become the second country to aid the Committee on Migrant Workers to process applications for migrant workers. In 2017, Ecuador also took steps to eliminating the worst form of child labor

To protect the right of migrants in Ecuador and across the globe, we propose a standard of equal pay to provide immigrants with the same wage as native citizens. By increasing the overall income of the working age members of immigrant families, this reduces the incentive for parents or other adults to exploit young children as a means of supplementing the family’s income, thus decreasing exploitative child labor.

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