Irregular Migrant Workers Research Articles

Abstract This qualitative study examined the challenges affecting the well‐being and coping strategies of Chin irregular migrant workers in Malaysia. Using non‐governmental organization referrals and snowball sampling, 25 participants were recruited for semi‐structured interviews and focus group discussions. The findings revealed that participants experienced mistreatment, discrimination, and financial exploitation from employers and co‐workers because of their irregular status, ethnic background, and language barriers. Fears of detention, deportation, restricted access to public healthcare, and discriminatory treatment affected their daily mental challenges and mental health. Religious devotion, alcohol consumption, and cohabitation were found to be coping strategies for addressing struggles, some of which are harmful coping mechanisms that lead to health problems. Therefore, collaboration between Myanmar and Malaysia is crucial for regularizing migrant status, providing accessible medical care without fear of repercussions, and enabling the use of formal channels for remittances to improve the health and well‐being of these individuals.

The bureaucratic management of the legal and administrative statuses of mi-grants is a pervasive yet scarcely researched aspect of the migratory experi-ence. This article describes the field of intermediation services for migrants, with a particular focus on legal and bureaucratic support. Using the 2020 regu-larization of irregular migrant workers in Italy as a case study, it shows that actors related to this emerging segment of the ‘migration industry' are not only concerned with facilitating migrants' physical border crossings but also that intermediation services increasingly involve the crossing of internal borders, particularly between different (il)legal migration statuses. The article describes the field of legal-administrative status-intermediation, highlighting the different actors involved, who differ widely in their legal competency and the degree to which they marketize their services. The article argues that the com-bination of legal uncertainty and the specific features of the institutional and regulatory framework concerning intermediation services in Italy creates space for the emergence and expansion of for-profit actors. These actors oper-ate on a sliding scale between legal and illegal, formal and informal service-provision, ranging from commercial intermediation to illicit practices and fraud. Additionally, the article shows increasing forms of competition and ten-sion between non-profit and for-profit actors in the field. The analysis is based on 45 interviews with different actors of civil society, employers and migrants involved in the amnesty. The article looks at the migration industry as a field of intermediation in a context marked by the pandemic and on the forms of embeddedness of irregular migrants in local society.

Access to vaccinations is crucial for everyone in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, regardless of migration or refugee status. This study explored COVID-19 prevention knowledge, attitudes, and vaccination challenges among refugees and irregular migrants from Myanmar in Malaysia. This study employed a descriptive mixed-method approach. Convenience sampling was used to conduct an online survey of 174 participants and two focus groups (N = 14). The majority (51.7 %) were refugees, and 48% were irregular migrant workers. In this study, 90.9% of the participants used social networks and social media chats to obtain information about COVID-19, 84.1% understood and found the vaccination campaign helpful, and 44.2% were aware of it. Although 70% of the participants considered vaccination crucial, 95% said that they would not take it because of fear of arrest and deportation, even though they considered vaccination necessary. Approximately 21.2% of the workers reported that their employers did not provide masks or hand sanitisers. Most of the participants (39.7 %) lived in dormitories provided by their employers. This puts them at a higher risk of infection because of the difficulty in practising social distancing. As part of COVID-19 prevention, the government should grant an amnesty period and work with migrant civil society organisations to administer vaccinations and effective measures for all immigrant populations in Malaysia.

While a thick strand of literature demonstrates informally employed workers and irregular migrants being generally worse off in the labor market, little has been done to examine and compare these two sources of disadvantages. Using regression analyses on a survey of migrant workers in Thailand from Cambodia, Myanmar and Lao People’s Democratic Republic, the paper measures the prevalence of informal employment and estimates the differential contributions of irregular migration status and informal employment on various employment conditions. The paper finds that informality has a relatively stronger association with worse employment conditions, and systematic differences persist across sectors of employment and countries of origin. Initiatives to improve working conditions for irregular migrant workers should thus focus on both formalizing their employment status and expanding access to legal and safe migration, including social protection programs, in destination countries.

Italy was the first European country touched by COVID-19 and one of the most severely affected, with a death toll that overtook China’s by mid-March 2020. As a result, lockdown measures aiming to mitigate — and eventually interrupt — the spread of COVID-19 proliferated during the first wave of the pandemic. The vast majority of these concerned the resident population, regardless of their status or country of origin, and mainly involved the closure of public offices and proscription of private activities with the aim of reducing mobility and social and physical contacts. Only a few concerned the foreign population and arriving irregular migrants. This article analyses migrant-related policy measures taken by the Italian government during the first wave of the pandemic that aimed to prevent infection and reduce the impact of COVID-19 among the population. These measures addressed two emergencies: the spread of COVID-19 that hit the resident population hard, regardless of origin or nationality, and the workforce shortages in some key economic sectors with a high number of irregular migrant workers. The former aimed at containing the spread of the virus (sections 4 and 5) and targeted foreigners already residing in Italy as well as irregular migrants arriving along the Mediterranean route; the latter aimed at addressing workforce shortages (section 6) as a result of borders that were closed to external seasonal migration. This article is a contribution to the debate on changes to migration and migrant policy, and how these impacted on migration and foreign populations during the pandemic.

In the context of the post-COVID-19 pandemic, Europe faces two significant challenges regarding migrant workers: a shortage of agricultural production workers in certain countries and the "coercive acceptance" of undocumented migrant workers. As most EU countries experience economic recovery following the pandemic, there is an urgent need to restore production activities at a reasonable cost. However, the aging population in some European nations compels governments to recruit foreign workers at elevated costs, leading to irregular migrant workers being viewed as a viable temporary solution. Reopening diplomatic programs with strategic partner countries is also a pressing priority, creating a challenge in reducing illegal migration without erecting insurmountable barriers in diplomatic relations. This analysis examines EU policies regarding migrant workers, with a particular focus on Spain, utilizing qualitative comparative research methodology to explore the distinction between illegal and irregular migration from the perspectives of human rights law and humanitarian considerations, while highlighting various aspects of EU legal documents aimed at protecting the rights of migrant workers and their families.

This paper aims to analyse sentiments and emotions about migration in Italy using Twitter, by comparing the period of COVID-19 pandemic with the previous year. We take Italy as a case study because it has been severely affected by the COVID-19, it is one of the largest recipients of immigrants in Europe and, is among the few countries that implemented an amnesty for irregular migrant workers during the pandemic. We apply a text mining and sentiment analysis to the tweets with hashtags and keywords related to the migration and to the COVID-19 pandemic. Results show that tweets related to migration express a sense of emergency and also invasion. No major changes occurred in the period of the pandemic in comparison with the previous period. Indeed, both negative and positive sentiments are present in the tweets in both periods, confirming a certain polarization in the public discourse about migration.

This study discusses that Thailand and Hungary embrace the availability of human rights in an unsustainable form, specifically in the case of irregular economic migrants. Over years, Europe and Southeast Asia have witnessed extensive human migration within the region due to scarcities, poverties, and climate changes. Humans migrate for work. However, despite the universal conduct of human rights for migrants, irregular migrant workers in Thailand and Hungary hardly ever earn such rights. This is because migration issues filter into the talk of both countries’ national security. In fact, economic migrants are interpreted as a threat that potentially causes multi-layered difficulties in the society for a long run. This study reveals that Thailand’s and Hungary’s migration management is subject to the ad-hocracy and situation-based policies that are instituted in these countries as security mechanisms to prevent the formation of transnational issues and social obstacles. They oversimplify the supposed existence of human rights as in the distinction of individual statuses – legal rights and moral rights. As such, it further effects the unfeasibility of human rights. This research has been conducted with qualitative methodology and used the theory of the push and pull model (1996) and Galtung’s violent triangle (1990).

Socio-ecological barriers to access COVID-19 vaccination among Burmese irregular migrant workers in Thailand

Exploitation is often understood as either an economic or criminal phenomenon. This essay seeks to challenge this unduly narrow understanding by exploring the social dynamics of exploitation. In doing so, I develop a broad socio-legal concept of 'commodification' that enables the more subtle, social forms of exploitative labour relations to be examined. Commodoficiation here is a particular state of exploitation along the unfree labour continuum in which the worker's 'social character' is subordinated to their 'economic character'. I also consider the role of labour law in this framework, exploring how collective bargaining supports and develops the social character and what labour law's normative approach should be, arguing in favour of an empowerment approach based on self-determination. Finally, I apply the concept to irregular migrant workers in the UK, examining how inhibiting collective bargaining affects their social character and contributes to their commodification.

ABSTRACT Using the 2020 regularisation of irregular migrant workers in Italy as a case study, the paper inquires about the role of Civil Society Actors (hereafter CSAs) in (de/re)bordering processes. Conceptualising borders as filters that draw distinctions through the sociocultural, legal and administrative constructs of deservingness entailed by immigration policymaking, the paper shows that, when implementing the regularisation programme, CSAs reproduce governmental distinctions between deserving and undeserving migrant workers and employers. However, CSAs can also find ways to challenge or circumvent internal borders, broadening the range of legitimate potential applicants through more or less visible and confrontational struggles, bending or even breaking the rules. In doing so, they redefine internal borders through alternative definitions of migrants’ deservingness.

In public health research, the health issues of irregular and vulnerable migrant populations remain under-explored. In particular, while mainland China has become a new and popular job-seeking destination for Filipino domestic workers (FDWs), the health status of FDWs and their access to healthcare have been invisible to public and academic concerns. This paper fills this lacuna by conducting a qualitative study that investigates FDWs’ self-reported health status and their healthcare-seeking behaviors. The results show that: (1) respondents do not report significant abusive and exploitative experience because the scarcity of FDWs in China in relation to the high demand enables them a certain degree of agency in labour market; (2) while FDWs do report some health problems, they tend to resort to self-medication and food-healing; (3) the main factors influencing health-seeking behavior include the fear of deportation, language gaps, the lack of knowledge of the local healthcare system and dependence on co-ethnic networks which serves as a double-edged sword; (4) these factors also lead to hesitation in health-seeking choice between public and private hospitals, which sometimes result in delayed treatment. This paper contributes to revealing the health conditions of FDWs in mainland China and calls for more inclusive health policy to enroll foreign domestic workers into the local health system in China.

International labor migration flows include a significant number of migrant workers who for specific reasons infringe residence rules in destination countries. These persons are considered to be the most vulnerable category of migrants, being prone to serious violations of their fundamental rights. States of destination have practically universally adopted policies to restrict and control irregular migration. In this context, the objective of this article is to establish the possibility for irregular migrant workers to benefit from the rights and results of their work, and to establish the limits and prohibitions that arise in the event of irregularity. The article examines both the international instruments and practice as well as regional and national approaches used by states in this field.

This essay analyses the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on undocumented and irregular migrant workers, especially those employed in the agricultural, domestic and personal care sectors. Then, the article offers a summary of the arguments spent at the National and International level about the regularisation as an extraordinary measure to face health, economic and social crises suffered by migrant workforce because of Covid-19. In addition, the critical aspects of the regularisation promoted by the Italian government through the Decree Law No. 34/2020, are highlighted. In conclusion, criticism is raised about the use of the regularisation as a mean to solve structural problems faced by migrant workers in Italy among which exploitation and marginalisation.

The rise of cases of non-procedural irregular migrant workers who are treated badly while working abroad has become a problem that is constantly being discussed in the mass media. Direct socialization to the community is expected to reduce the number of cases of Non-Procedural PMI. By targeting areas that send a lot of irregular migrant workers, it is hoped that they can open their eyes to register according to procedures and not be tempted by the incitement of irresponsible and unlawful labor sending agents.

Legal norms regulate the situation of migrants. At international level, however, they are primarily responsible for establishing fundamental human rights, but the normative development of both the United Nations and the ILO focuses primarily on analyzing the situation of migrant workers in regular status, which leaves aside the situation of irregular migrant workers. The method of document content analysis was used to review and assess various sources, studies and legal documents. In the same way, the analytical-synthetic method is used, which makes it possible to integrate the most important normative and jurisprudential sources. In order to support the validation, the IADOV method and the neutrosophic logic were applied for the analysis of satisfaction on the irregularities in the international legal field related to the human rights of migrant workers in Ecuador.

ABSTRACTThe paper investigates mobility options and practices of irregular migrant workers and international urban refugees during the 2011 flood in Bangkok, Thailand. Contributing to debates on disaster mobility and climate change induced displacement, the paper explores how citizenship and racialized differences unfolded during the flood event and how such differences had (de)mobilising effects for specific subgroups of Bangkok’s irregular population. Drawing on the concepts of assemblage and affect the paper proposes to perceive of race as emergent within concrete interactions between bodies, rather than a pre-given social category or a purely discursive trope. From this perspective the body itself may become a repository to subvert or manipulate racialized perceptions. The paper argues that approaching race as an emerging assemblage helps to shed light both on the demobilising effects race had on people’s mobility as well as on the fleeting moments of generosity and care between people that proliferated alongside such demobilisations.

Рустем Шамилевич Давлетгильдеев – д. ю.н., доцент, академический координатор центра Жана Монне в области европейских исследований VOICES+, заместитель декана юридического факультета, Казанский федеральный университет, Казань, Россия. Электронная почта: roustem.davletguildeev@kpfu.ru Международно-правовое регулирование трудовой миграции в рамках региональных объединений Европейского союза и Евразийского экономического союза характеризуется своеобразием и отличается от универсальных моделей, сложившихся в рамках ООН. В статье дается сравнение терминов, используемых в Договоре о ЕАЭС с термином «работник», сложившимся в рамках практики Суда ЕС, формулируются отдельные предложения для интеграционных институтов ЕАЭС по учету опыта права ЕС в области обеспечения свободного передвижения работников. В результате исследования сделаны следующие выводы. Несмотря на влияние правового опыта ЕС в отношении формирующейся правовой системы Содружества, особенно в плане создания Экономического Союза и общего экономического пространства в рамках Таможенного союза и Евразийского экономического сообщества, реализация соответствующих договорных положений существенно отличается от правовой модели свободного передвижения в праве ЕС. Для целей развития экономической интеграции и обеспечения единого рынка труда в ЕАЭС было бы целесообразно: использовать широкое понимание термина «трудящийся государства-члена», применять опыт ЕС по запрету трудовой деятельности для нерегулярных трудовых мигрантов, дополнить Договор о ЕАЭС положением о запрете дискриминации трудящихся государств-членов по признаку гражданства, внести в Договор о ЕАЭС положения о правовом регулировании трудовой миграции граждан третьих стран. Желаемая модель интеграции в рамках ЕАЭС может быть тем более эффективной, если будет вбирать в себя лучший опыт, накопленный в других региональных интеграционных объединениях.

The multi-directional nature of labour migration flows has resulted in an increasing number of countries having become both senders and receivers of regular and irregular migrants. However, some countries continue to see themselves primarily as senders and so ignore their role as a receiving country, which can have negative implications for the rights of migrants in their territory. Using the example of Indonesia, which is State Party to the 1990 UN Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Their Families, this article demonstrates that irregular migrant workers in this country have the legal right to protection against labour exploitation even when they work despite the government’s prohibition on employment. The article discusses the ‘right to work’ and how international human rights law has translated it into the ‘right to protection from labour exploitation’ for irregular migrants in Indonesia. By way of two case studies about the Indonesian government’s handling of irregular migrants, it shows how it prioritises enforcement of the immigration law over labour and employment laws much like countries that have not ratified the ICRMW. It also draws attention to legal protection gaps that emerge for asylum seekers when they are recognised to be genuine refugees.

Los trabajadores migrantes irregulares y sus derechos sociales en el Reino Unido