In a significant win for migrant worker rights organizations and the people they represent, Kyrgyzstan President Sadyr Japarov issued an August 28 decree that the republic join the UN’s Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Legal Migration (GCM). The decree demonstrates that, with the goal of improving conditions for Kyrgyz citizens who travel abroad to earn their livelihoods, Kyrgyzstan is recognizing the importance of aligning with global trends in migration governance and taking an important step toward harmonizing national legislation with international standards.
The decree follows years of work by the Solidarity Center with its partners in Central Asia, including, in Kyrgyzstan, with the Migrant Workers Union, a network of nongovernmental organizations focused on migration, and the relevant Kyrgyzstan state bodies. Collaborative actions have included gathering and reporting data on harsh conditions for migrant workers, educating migrating and returning workers about their rights, and advocating for effectively enforced protective legislation and policies.
“We celebrate the hard work of our regional partners in Central Asia, who are working in coalition to support Kyrgyzstan’s successful participation in the GCM,” says Neha Misra, Solidarity Center migration and forced labor global lead. “For too long, Central Asian migrant workers and the labor organizations that represent them have been excluded from important policy discussions within UN systems and regionally.”
The UN’s 2018 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration sets out a cooperative framework for member states to achieve safe, orderly and regular migration within a rights-based framework, and includes a process for implementation and review. With Solidarity Center support, Kyrgyzstan unofficially contributed to the review process at the UN’s first International Migration Forum (IMRF) in 2022, in part through participation of Derbisheva Gulnara, director of Kyrgyzstan migrant rights nongovernmental organization Insan-Leilek Public Foundation, and Shamshiev Ulan, vice-chairman of the Council for Migration, Compatriots and Diasporas Abroad, under the Speaker of the Parliament of the Kyrgyz Republic.
Millions of citizens of Central Asian countries have migrated abroad in search of jobs to sustain themselves and their families. Most of them, including those from Kyrgyzstan, were un- or underemployed workers who have traveled to take up low-wage, precarious jobs such as domestic workers, drivers or laborers in informal arrangements with their employers. Migrant worker remittances—money sent home to support family members—account for more than 30 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s gross domestic product (GDP). Kyrgyzstan’s citizens are headed primarily to Kazakhstan or Russia, as well as further to Hungary, South Korea, Turkey or other countries. Many Central Asian migrant workers report facing discrimination, exploitation and unsafe working conditions and are at risk of being trafficked and subjected to forced labor.
The Solidarity Center has supported migrant worker rights in the Central Asia region for almost a decade, providing educational workshops and helping to organize migrant worker rights fora. Two regional fora, in 2023 and 2024, focused attention on the plight of migrant workers in Central Asia, including in Kyrgyzstan. Outcomes of the fora included coalition building, with the creation of a cross-regional group of state authorities and nongovernmental organizations that collaborate on solutions, such as countries joining or otherwise participating in the GCM. With its Kyrgyzstan partners, the Solidarity Center last year submitted a voluntary regional report to the GCM that outlines challenges to state compliance with principles such as international cooperation, human rights, the engagement of relevant government institutions and the rule of law, and proposed that Kyrgyzstan join the GCM to help meet those challenges.
A Solidarity Center-supported survey of hundreds of Kyrgyz women migrant workers across 19 Russian cities in 2021 documented brutal conditions on the job, including sexual violence. In Russia—where an estimated 750,000 Kyrgyz people have migrated for work, half of them women—workers have reported rising racism, working without official contracts or having their wages stolen, and having few opportunities to stand up for their rights or hold their employers accountable.
“Kyrgyzstan’s participation in the GCM is an important first step in garnering more recognition for the labor rights of Central Asian migrant workers,” says Solidarity Center Central Asia Country Program Director Lola Abdukadyrova in Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital.
The Solidarity Center strives for worker rights for people on the move by ensuring migrant worker rights are a key part of the labor movement. Almost 170 million people are international migrant workers, comprising almost 5 percent of the global labor force. To promote respect for the rights of migrant workers and refugees of any category, the Solidarity Center partners with unions and worker rights organizations to extend workplace protections to all workers, and works in consultation with the UN and partners around the world—including in Kyrgyzstan and other Central Asian countries. In coalition, the Solidarity Center focuses on creating safe migration processes for workers, including greater regulation of labor recruiters and the elimination of recruitment fees to prevent debt bondage, and the eradication of forced labor from global supply chains. And the Solidarity Center supports the creation of networks among partners in origin and destination countries to ensure that migrant workers are protected along their journey.