Lao

The Declaration aims at enhacing the well-being and protection of the migrant fishersabd at strengthening mesasures to enhance the labour conditions of migrant fishers and ensure their labour rights prrotection. 

The Declaration recognises the need to provide humanitarian assistance to all migrants and their family members—regardless of their legal status— during crisis situations. It encourages the ASEAN Member States to include migrant workers and their families in all stages of crisis management and ensure they have access to continuing support.

The adoption of the ASEAN Declaration on Portability of Social Security Benefits for Migrant Workers in ASEAN is the realisation of the ASEAN Leaders’ commitments made in the 2007 Cebu Declaration and the 2017 ASEAN Consensus on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers. It also reflects the concerted efforts of the Member States to transform ASEAN into a community that is people-centred, inclusive, sustainable, resilient, and dynamic as stated in the ASEAN 2025 Vision.

In May 2010, a joint ASEAN, Australia, and New Zealand task force developed ASEAN Qualifications Reference Framework (AQRF) as the mechanism to benchmark national qualifications frameworks into mutually comparable regional standards.

On 29 November 2017, COMMIT (an inter-governmental body of the Governments of Cambodia, China, Lao, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, with UNDP’s UN-ACT project serving as Secretariat), at the 12th COMMIT Senior Officials Meeting, finalized a preamble to support ILO’s General Principles and Operational Guidelines on Fair Recruitment.

The Poverty Reduction through Safe Migration, Skills Development and Enhanced Job Placement in Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Thailand (PROMISE) project funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) aims to improve the employability of migrants; to promote safe migration from Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar into Thailand; and to contribute to poverty reduction in the region.

All ASEAN Member States adopted  in 2007 the ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers.

The Declaration underlines ASEAN Member States’ commitments to, among others, promote decent, humane, and dignified employment, as well as prevent and curb smuggling and trafficking of persons. Indonesia and ASEAN member states are now working towards the establishment of a legally-binding instrument on the protection of all migrant workers, regardless of their employment status.

The ASEAN Forum on Migrant Labour is an open platform for the review, discussion and exchange of the best practices and ideas between governments, workers’ and employers’ organizations, and civil society stakeholders on key issues facing migrant workers in ASEAN. The forum also has produced recommendations to advance the implementation of the principle of the ASEAN declaration and protection and promotion of the rights of the migrant workers. 

Thailand aims at addressing the socio-economic disparities that are seen to be one of the main causes of migration in the sub-region. For this reason its capacity building efforts in the sub-region involve a range of economic development projects along border areas with neighboring countries, notably (but not limited to) under the ACMECS framework.

The TRIANGLE project aims to significantly reduce the exploitation of labour migrants in the region through increased legal and safe migration and improved labour protection. The project will promote both bilateral and regional approaches to deal with shared concerns, make regionalism more effective, and enhance the capacity of institutions in ASEAN. The project objectives are in line with the strategic priorities of the ASEAN Labour Ministers Work Programme (2010-2015).