Beyond Borders, Beyond Numbers: The Wellbeing of Migrant Workers in ASEAN
Written by: Siti Nadhira S. & Tsalsa Aulia R.
Over the past few decades, regional economic integration in Southeast Asia has developed rapidly and is very economically profitable. This enhancement makes Southeast Asia as one of the destinations for foreign direct investment as well as a destination for migrant workers, both from intra-ASEAN and outside ASEAN. The mobility of these migrant workers was further strengthened by the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community in 2015 which seeks to mobilize skilled workers in the region. Currently, migrant workers make an important contribution to the social and economy sector of all ASEAN countries. For the host countries, migrant workers are essential to the operation of the economy. While for the home countries, migration is essential to offer job opportunities that are not available in their countries. Remittances sent back by workers to their home countries provide a livelihood for several households and are also an important part of the capital needed for national development. However, migrant workers often experience various kinds of losses in the host countries. Among them is the lack of access to social security due to legislative barriers in ASEAN countries that limit the access of migrant workers to social security benefits. So how does ASEAN deal with this problem? And what are the regulations in ASEAN and its member countries regarding these migrant workers? In this article, we will provide an overview of the current situation of migrant workers in ASEAN as well as present possible future challenges so that it can be anticipated from now on.
ASEAN and Migrant Workers: Current Condition
Based on the ASEAN Consensus of Migrant Workers, migrant worker refers to a person who is to be engaged or employed, is engaged or employed, or has recently been engaged or employed in a remunerated activity in a State of which he or she is not a national. Since the start of the labor migration trend in the 1980s, the number of labor migration in ASEAN has continued to increase. By 2020, intra-ASEAN migration alone has reached 7.1 million people, two-thirds of the region’s total international migrant stock (UNDESA, 2020). Within ASEAN, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Philippines, and Vietnam are net-origin countries, while Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand are the net-destination countries.
Regarding the large number of migrant workers in ASEAN, at the ASEAN Summit held in Cebu, Philippines, January 2007, ten ASEAN member countries adopted the Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers. This declaration underscores the vital contribution that migrant workers make to society and the economy of both host (receiving) and sending countries in ASEAN. It acknowledged the difficulties migrant workers and their families often face in exercising their rights. Most importantly, the Cebu Declaration binds all ASEAN countries to strengthen the protection provided to migrant workers, both for the migrants they receive and those they send (Tamagno, 2008). In addition to the Cebu Declaration, ASEAN has also formulated the ASEAN Consensus on the Protection and Promotion of Migrant Workers’ Rights in 2017, whose implementation was led by the ASEAN Committee on the Implementation of the ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers (ACMW).
Despite the preference for admitting skilled professionals in official policy, the majority of migrant workers in ASEAN are still employed in semiskilled and low-skill occupations in agriculture, construction, and domestic services (Pasadilla & Abella, 2012). For example, in Malaysia, which relies heavily on cheap migrant workers for its rubber plantations, almost all migrant workers (about 93%) are semi-skilled or unskilled, and 63% only have primary education or below. Although steps have been taken to ensure the rights of migrant workers in ASEAN, migrant workers are still subject to exploitative conditions, including low wages, unsafe workplaces, debt bondage, and human trafficking (Tamagno, 2008). Prior to migration, migrant workers were vulnerable to recruitment-related abuses due to governance gaps and their relatively weak bargaining position. Many migrants work in sectors with inadequate labor protection and law enforcement during employment. Worse working conditions are often faced by women migrant workers, where gender gaps in the labor market remain prevalent. Women migrant workers often have little choice but to migrate irregularly because of government restrictions and restrictions on women’s mobility in the region. This often results in women migrant workers being employed in jobs outside of legal protection mechanisms. The number of women migrant workers is often underestimated and not managed optimally, making women migrant workers more vulnerable to violations of their rights and unfair or even dangerous practices and harassment.
Pandemic Implication on Migrant Workers
The pandemic has indeed shone a spotlight on pre-existing social issues. With the restriction of international travel, many migrant workers have lost their source of income in the host countries. This unravels the vulnerability of the migrant workers protection system in ASEAN. Ducanes et al., (2020) reported that in Thailand, approximately 150,000 Myanmar migrant workers, 50,000 Cambodian, and 60,000 lost their jobs due to the pandemic. Furthermore, in Malaysia the amount of migrant workers who had to go back to their home countries reached 52,000 people. In accumulation, the pandemic has cost around 300,000 migrant workers their source of livelihood. The struggle did not stop there. International Labor Organization policy brief reported that the pandemic has led to decline in working hours as well as employment. In ASEAN itself, the unemployment percentage rate in 2019 to 2020 went from 2.5 to 3.1 percent. This makes it more difficult for migrant workers to seek employment in their home countries, as they now have to compete with the millions of people who also lost their livelihood in their home country to the pandemic. On the other hand, migrant workers play a pivotal role in nations’ remittances. ILO also reported that in 2018 many households in ASEAN sending countries benefited from migrant workers’ remittances, which amounted to $75 billion (Ducanes et al., 2020). However, even though they are considered an essential lifeline who contribute the most to nations’ remittances, in the economy where the informal sectors are considered unskilled, many migrant workers find themselves struggling to attain secure employment wherever they are.
The uncertainty and lack of job security make migrant workers very vulnerable. Indeed, some sending countries have made an effort to bridge this gap. The Philippines, for example, gave one-time monetary payments to affected migrant workers as well as facilitated chartering flights back home. Whereas some host countries such as Thailand have granted authorization to migrant workers from Cambodia and Myanmar, to stay and those in the formal sector have been given unemployment insurance and severance pay, depending on the number of contributions made and the period of employment (Ducanes et al., 2020). However, a more active and collaborative cross-border response is still needed to ensure the wellbeing of migrant workers, as they have a significant role in the region’s job market.
Future Challenges
For decades, efforts in creating a more sustainable, safe, and inclusive environment for migrant workers have been going on. Gurowitz (2000) noted that the most pressing worry appeared to be finding an equilibrium between labor demand from the industry and the migrant labor’s inevitable role in achieving the objective of a developed state by 2020. Since then, government measures have primarly concentrated on preventing undocumented labor from entering the country, with little attention paid to migrant workers’ human rights in the home or host countries. Whereas the concern over migrant workers tends to be out of fears of increased competition among local and migrant workers, which are often associated with crime rates, further deepening the stigma over migrant workers. Thus, this could be a challenge for future ASEAN.
While numbers on the profitability of migrant worker schemes may be attractive for policymakers to pay attention to this matter, it is important to remember that migrant workers are more than just the largest contributor to national remittances. Having this mindset could undermine the complexities and depth of the lives of workers who have to be away from their families in order to make ends meet. This could also be harmful in shaping the public’s perception of migrant workers, which could perpetuate the discrimination that migrant workers face from the system and the community. Migrant worker well-being is a systemic issue that necessitates systemic solutions in ASEAN and worldwide. Cross Border collaboration and more human-centered policies that see people more than the value they contribute to the economy are some ways of ensuring the welfare of migrant workers today and in upcoming generations.
References:
ASEAN. (2017). ASEAN Consensus on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers. Jakarta: ASEAN Secretariat. https://asean.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/ASEAN-Consensus-on-the-Protection-and-Promotion-of-the-Rights-of-Migrant-Workers1.pdf.
Ducanes, G., Dutta, P., & Nixon, N. (2020, December). Displaced, Stranded, Unprotected: ASEAN’s Migrant Workers. Thediplomat.com. https://thediplomat.com/2020/12/displaced-stranded-unprotected-aseans-migrant-workers/
Gurowitz, A. (2000). Migrant Rights and Activism in Malaysia: Opportunities and Constraints. The Journal of Asian Studies, 59(4), 863. https://doi.org/10.2307/2659215.
International Labour Organization. (2021). Triangle in ASEAN Quarterly Briefing Note. https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/documents/genericdocument/wcms_647658.pdf.
Pasadilla, G. & Abella, M. (2012). Social Protection for Migrant Workers in ASEAN (Working Paper №3914). CESifo. http://www.cesifo.de.
Tamagno, E. (2008). Strengthening social protection for ASEAN migrant workers through social security agreements (Working Paper №10). ILO Asian Regional Programme on Governance of Labour Migration. https://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/2008/411197.pdf.
