Sep 18, 2024
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.
Sep 16, 2024
The Solidarity Center welcomes the release of Cambodia’s Sithar Chhim, president of the Labor Rights Supported Union of Khmer Employees of NagaWorld (LRSU), who in 2022 was jailed for exercising her human right to peacefully assemble and freely associate and subsequently sentenced to two years in prison for “incitement to commit a felony”– a common charge against Cambodian rights activists.
“We are grateful that sister Sithar Chhim has been released and laud LRSU leaders and activists for their commitment and courage in continuing to fight for their rights,” says Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau.
Chhim was jailed with seven union colleagues for peacefully walking a picket line at Phnom Penh NagaWorld Hotel and Casino in 2022 and sentenced the following year to two years in prison for “incitement.” In years prior, the union’s successful organizing and activism had won substantial wage increases for thousands of NagaWorld employees.
The arrests and later convictions prompted global condemnation, including from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN Human Rights Office and inspired a global union campaign for the release of LRSU leaders and for their charges to be expunged by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF) and other unions worldwide.
The 2024 ITUC Global Rights Index rates Cambodia as one of the worst countries to work in, where workers have “no guarantee of rights.”
Sep 6, 2024
Proposal Deadline: 11:59 PM EDT on Thursday, November 14, 2024
The Solidarity Center is seeking proposals from qualified applicants to conduct an evaluation of a portfolio of U.S. government (USG) funded international labor programs and the associated strategic program framework.
Jul 9, 2024
For the first time in Iraq’s Hawija District, women were elected to leadership positions in a new union they helped organize and form.
In May, 185 male and female agricultural workers in Iraq’s Hawija, located in Kirkuk Province, voted to form the Farmers’ Union for the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI). Four women won leadership positions, including president, secretary to the president, vice president and financial secretary.
Formation of the union followed participation by members of the FWCUI in a Solidarity Center organizing training in October 2023. Training participants began educating workers and organizing workers’ committees.
Women played an essential role in organizing and raising awareness. Marginalized in their work, subjected to wage exploitation and excluded from social security and occupational health and safety education, many women saw belonging to a union as their best chance for representation and protection from workplace abuses.
Women workers faced many injustices compared to their male coworkers, including termination for taking maternity leave, long working hours and exposure to harmful chemicals and fertilizers without health and safety training or protections. The FWCUI and the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) held seminars with women to address their concerns and educate them about union organizing to advocate for their rights as workers. These discussions on gender-based violence and harassment, cultural and social barriers, and social security and occupational health and safety raised interest among women in organizing a union to give them a voice to advocate for fair treatment and safer working conditions.
The impact of climate change and the environmental stress of extreme heat also led workers to organize their union. Iraq is experiencing a heatwave, with temperatures rising above 50 C (120 F), exacerbating already strenuous working conditions for agricultural workers. High temperatures and water scarcity have also led to land desertification, reducing job opportunities for agricultural workers.
Before occupation by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Hawija district was a prosperous agricultural center. It produced wheat, barley, corn, vegetables and fruit that fed people in all corners of the country. Most of its approximately 450,000 residents were small farmers and owners of small agriculture-related businesses.
The ISIS occupation led to widespread human suffering and destroyed Hawija’s infrastructure and the livelihoods of its residents. Farmers lost most of their tools and essential crops at the height of the conflict.
In September 2017, the district was finally reclaimed from militant control. Facing the destruction wrought by the conflict and lacking other job opportunities, most of the population returned to agriculture to make a living and provide for their families.
Jun 26, 2024
Guatemalan union leader Anastacio Tzib Caal was shot and killed on June 15 in a targeted murder in the municipality of Villa Canales, outside of Guatemala City. Anastacio dedicated his life to improving working conditions in Guatemala’s apparel sector. He was recently elected general secretary of the SITRATEXPIA II union at SAE-A Trading’s Texpia II apparel factory, which produces garments for several global brands, including Gap, Carhartt, Target and Walmart. The murder comes after a resurgence in calls for violence against labor leaders at the factory three months after the union had initially engaged with the company management to respond to earlier threats.
The ITUC has again rated Guatemala as one of the 10 worst countries in the world to be a worker, with more than 111 murdered trade unionists since 2004.
Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau offered this statement:
“The Solidarity Center condemns the June 15 murder of Anastacio Tzib Caal and extends its deepest condolences to his family, the two children he leaves behind, and his union sisters and brothers in SITRATEXPIA II.
“The assassination of General Secretary Tzib Caal comes after repeated death threats against union leaders at the factory. The Solidarity Center stands with the leaders of SITRATEXPIA II in calling for a robust investigation of the perpetrators of this heinous crime under the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes Against Trade Unionists.
“Threats against union activists and violence against elected union leaders stand in direct contradiction to the principles of worker rights and empowerment.
“The Solidarity Center urges buyers like Gap and Target to redouble their commitments to freedom of association and collective bargaining with their suppliers; support the union’s proposed labor-management plan to counter the perception, brought on by the assassination, that union activism is synonymous with death; and maintain their commitments to creating good jobs in Guatemala in partnership with SAE-A Trading.
“The support we are seeing across the global labor movement for the new Arévalo administration’s commitment to workers’ human rights gives us hope for a future where workers can exercise their rights without fear of violence.”
