Measures to improve the situation and ensure the human rights and dignity of all migrant markers and their families

25 (XXXV). Measures to improve the situation and ensure the human rights and dignity of all migrant markers and their families[1]55

1. Invites all States to:

(a) Work towards the creation, at the national level, of the necessary conditions which would prevent migrant workers and their families in their working and private life from encountering discrimination;

(b) Take all appropriate measures to ensure that the human rights, defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including the economic and social rights of migrant workers, be fully safeguarded under their domestic legislation;

(c) Apply relevant international instruments, bilateral and multilateral, and, if necessary, to conclude new bilateral and multilateral agreements designed, in particular, to improve the conditions of migrant workers and of their families and to eliminate the illicit traffic in foreign labour and the violations of human rights resulting therefrom;

2. Invites the Governments of host countries to:

(a) Assure migrant workers and the members of their families of equality of treatment in the field of labour, particularly concerning the economic and social rights, living and working conditions, wages, the right of association and other related rights;

(b) Adopt effective measures to ensure that the migrant workers and their families are familiar with and can avail themselves of all their civil, economic and social rights, including rights relating to social security;

(c) Take the necessary steps to promote the normalization of the family life of migrant workers through the reunification of their families on their territories, within the framework of their legislative systems;

(d) Give special attention to the situation of the children of migrant workers, envisage appropriate measures which would enable those children, while preserving their national values, to adjust to the society in which they live, and establish, in co-operation with the countries of origin, appropriate machinery to assure them of a bi-cultural education, and give to the children of migrant workers, as far as possible, access to the teaching of their mother tongue and culture, the general conditions applicable to such teaching, including those relating to co-ordination with standard teaching, to be laid down by the host country in co-operation with the country of origin;

(e) Implement policies relating to training, health, housing and educational and cultural development, similar to those enjoyed by citizens of the host country, for migrant workers and their families and guarantee them the free exercise of activities calculated to preserve their cultural values;

3. Invites the Governments of countries of origin to provide migrant workers with effective protection and to inform them as fully as possible of their rights and obligations;

4. Requests host countries and countries of origin to co-operate in various ways through the conclusion of bilateral or multilateral agreements capable of solving the problems facing migrant workers and to work together in examining the reintegration of migrant workers in case of voluntary return to the country of origin, and recommends to this end that special attention should be paid to voluntary reintegration in the country of origin, which should be smooth and should take the economic context of the country of origin and possible vocational retraining into account;

5. Recommends that the United Nations bodies and the competent specialized agencies, particularly the International Labour Organisation, should pay continuing attention to migrant workers, and intensify their action in this field;

6. Requests the United Nations bodies, the specialized agencies and the other world-wide and regional intergovernmental organizations and competent non-governmental organizations, and the countries of origin and host countries of migrant workers, to communicate to the Commission the model agreements and agreements which they formulate on the various aspects of inter-State relations in so far as they concern migrant workers;

7. Decides:

(a) To supervise, with the assistance of the International Labour Organisation, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the World Health Organization, and the other competent intergovernmental organizations and those NGOs which have consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, the application of the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to all migrant workers;

(b) To give priority, at its next session, to the following three questions:

(i) Protection of the children of migrant workers against any form of discrimination and measures to be taken in order to facilitate their adaptation to the culture of the host country while maintaining and developing their knowledge of the language and national culture of the country of origin;

(ii) Violations of the human rights of migrant workers resulting from the illicit traffic in such workers;

(iii) Access of migrant workers to remedies in enterprises, from the administration, in courts and against all forms of arbitrary expulsion;

8. Decides to keep on its agenda the item entitled "Measures to improve the situation and ensure the human rights and dignity of all migrant workers", in particular for the purpose of studying the situation of those groups of migrant workers who continue to encounter practical difficulties with regard to the complete and genuine enjoyment of human rights.