News and statements on labour migration

  1. Women migrant workers: seizing opportunities, upholding rights

    24 September 2008

    Nearly half of the world’s migrants are women. Increasingly, migration provides them with opportunities to find better jobs. However, many still accept lower skilled jobs for higher pay and some may even become victims of exploitation and abuse. In partnership with the ILO, UN agencies and NGOs, the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women is holding the International Conference on Gender, Migration and Development in Manila on 25-26 September to focus on the issue. ILO migration specialist Gloria Moreno-Fontes Chammartin speaks about the link between migration, gender equality and development.

  2. ILO launches new initiatives in Africa (in French)

    09 June 2008

    The ILO Regional Office for Africa, the Social Security Department and the International Migration Programme launched two new regional initiatives aimed at extending social security coverage to African migrant workers and strengthening the financial governance of social protection systems in Africa. What are the issues at stake and what will be the concrete impact of these initiatives in the field? An insight from Mr. Assane Diop, Executive Director of the Social Protection Sector at the ILO in Geneva.

  3. OSCE-IOM-ILO launch Handbook on Labour Migration for the Mediterranean

    12 December 2007

    ILO together with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) are launching a major new tool here today to assist governments and social partners around the Mediterranean to regulate labour migration.

  4. International Migrants Day - Message by Mr. Juan Somavia, Director-General of the ILO

    29 November 2007

    "Gains from migration and protection of migrant rights are inseparable" said Mr. Juan Somavia, highlighting the enormous contributions made by women and men migrant workers to the prosperity of their home and destination countries, on the occasion of International Migrants Day, 18 December.

  5. New UN initiative to fight human trafficking and poverty in Tajikistan

    09 July 2007

  6. International Migrants Day (18 December 2006) Reversing the brain drain in China: the return of the 'sea turtles'

    11 December 2006

    As China's economy continues to grow exponentially, the country faces a shortage of locally educated managers with international experience. But more and more Chinese who previously left the country to study abroad are heading back to the land of opportunities, according to a recent article in the ILO's International Labour Review ( Note 1).

  7. Giving a fair deal to the world's 86 million migrant workers

    23 May 2006

    Across the world, millions of people are on the move - doing jobs ranging from manual labour such as harvesting to high-skilled computer programming. Combined, their numbers with their dependents would equal the fifth most populous country on the planet. And their numbers are likely to increase, according to the ILO.

  8. "Maid in Lebanon": protecting the rights of migrant domestic workers

    13 April 2006

    Driven by extreme poverty in their home countries, thousands of female migrant workers go each year to the Arab States in order to earn enough money to support their families. What they find there is sometimes not what they expected. , a film directed by Carol Mansour and funded by Caritas Sweden, the Netherlands Embassy in Beirut and the ILO depicts the gamble these women take when they decide to leave their families and go to work in Lebanon.

  9. Government, business, labour leaders call for new effort on migration

    07 April 2006

  10. Labour migration on the agenda of Africa-Europe dialogue

    05 April 2006