Section IV

Promoting the International Convention on the Protection of Rights for All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families

Promoting the Convention in practical terms has several dimensions. One, of course, is working to achieve the ratification or accession to the instrument by governments. That is perhaps only a beginning. Once a Convention is ratified, its legal standards need to be incorporated into national, and sometimes state or provincial and local legislation. This legislation or law then needs to be put into practice and that practice needs to be monitored. In addition, reports need to be prepared to international treaty bodies on implementation and compliance.

Yes, this is complex and extensive, but it may be taken a step at a time. The work may build and continue, sometimes slowly, over a matter of years. So we take it step by step.

Ratification of the Convention

One of the first challenges to seeking ratification of the Convention is to promote awareness about it. Even advocates for the rights of migrants may know little about the existence of the Convention and even less about its substance and significance. Building awareness should be linked to advocacy for its ratification, and will most need to be done within specific national settings.

Following are some key elements to consider in promoting the Convention in each country:

Coalition Building

A campaign to ratify the Convention is an important opportunity for coalition-building in any country. Depending on political conditions, such coalitions may be extremely broad or only moderately so.

Why build coalitions?

• Political support and clout

A substantive coalition is evidence of broader political support beyond the community of migrants. It promotes an image of formality and credibility, and provides the backing and vehicle for mobilizing the active support needed when advocacy of the Convention moves to another stage of 'official' promotion with governmental bodies.

• Self-interest

Many sectors other than migrants do have a self-interest in supporting the Convention, but need to be made aware of it. The campaign needs to identify what that interest may be. Women's groups and trade unions are the more obvious organizations with clear links to the Convention, but other entities (such as a local government body) may also have a reason to support the Convention and its ratification. Other organizations or coalitions on other issues may have an interest in incorporating advocacy for the Convention within their own program of action.

• Public awareness

Knowledge of the Convention and support for it will generally be built step-by-step and sector-by-sector. One way to increase public awareness is to approach key groups and movements that provide specific audiences for awareness-building through publications, conferences, and so forth.

• Financial support

Coalitions provide an avenue for fund raising. Some coalition members may be able to provide non-monetary forms of support such as staff time, photo-copying, phones, travel expenses, supplies.

Target groups for coalitions

(local, regional, and national level)

• Immigrant and migrant rights organizations, immigrant associations, and agencies working with immigrants

• Trade unions, labor associations, employee organizations, women's organizations

• Religious organizations: all faiths and denominations, orders, lay associations, institutional bodies and departments

• Academic representatives and student organizations, including immigrant student groups, law students, student body associations

• Human rights organizations, including local human rights task forces and commissions

• Civil rights groups and others organizing against racial discrimination

• Legal organizations

• Other social and economic justice groups: in some instances, organizations concerned with the environment, development and food policies, poverty, social welfare, foreign policy, and so forth, can be important supporters.

Vehicles for building coalitions

The campaign, as a coalition, could involve any or all of the following examples for bringing supporters together:

• A national campaign coalition or committee: include some form of leadership structure that agrees to and consults on a plan of action

• Campaign advisory committee: a body which may include significant individuals or representatives of important groups who support the campaign, are unable to participate actively, but are willing to lend their name to the effort

• A list of endorsers: a body of all the individuals and organizations endorsing the Convention, and who receive information and are urged to support it at certain stages.

Content of the work

Coalitions, committees and alliances are all basic vehicles for promoting national campaigning. They must develop activities in various areas in order to build awareness and advocacy. Common categories of activity include:

- public education and awareness

- information media coverage

- training of organizers and advocates

- building institutional support

- conducting advocacy or "lobbying" with government officials

Each of these areas requires specific tasks. Most involve drawing on specialized skills. Many of these skills are likely to be available within coalition member organizations. The experience of many campaigns demonstrates that taking a reasonably professional approach to each aspect of the work will pay off in efficient use of financial resources, effective results, and building a positive impression of the effort itself, as well as for the intended outcome.

The following sections offer some suggested activities for each area.

Public education, awareness building, outreach

• Reproduce in local languages basic educational pamphlets, brochures and posters offered by the international campaign or create your own.

• Design materials appropriate to national conditions and audiences, for example an educational piece that critiques existing laws and policies that are in conflict with the Convention.

• Publish a periodic bulletin which includes basic information on the Convention, as well as updates on national and international progress on ratification, to be sent to all endorsers, and to be used as part of the outreach materials.

• For those who have access to the World Wide Web and Internet, make the ratification campaign part of an online home page, with links to other key national or international sites; provide a format for people to send in their endorsements.

• The demand for ratification should certainly be incorporated existing plans and activities of migrant rights advocates, including annual events and programs, rallies, and so forth. Incorporate the demand for ratification into the plans and regular activities of coalition member groups, such as annual conferences, newsletters, programs, rallies, and encourage other organizations to do likewise.

• Seek to have information tables, booths or stands on the convention/campaign at annual meetings, conventions, fairs of all manner of organizations.

• Establish a speakers bureau of people from various sectors who can speak about the Convention to diverse audiences.

• Ratification of the Convention could be a focal point for a concentrated education campaign, such as a week of action, which could include a series of public events and media activities. In some countries, a Migrant Week or Day has already been established; similar initiatives could be proposed in your context.

• Organize film showings, art or poster exhibits, or displays in prominent show windows and building lobbies.

• Support presentations of theater, dance, music, art by migrant groups.

Promoting media coverage

Working with mass news and information media has evolved into a sophisticated and challenging task. Efforts such as the campaign to ban anti-personnel land mines has shown, a professional, well organized and well presented approach can also promote extensive coverage in major media.

There are many other media vehicles to approach, not least many specialized publications, radio and television programmes, and media channels of NGOs.

Some specific initiatives to consider:

• Prepare a background piece on the Convention appropriate to the interests/approaches of your national media.

• Develop briefing papers and/or comprehensive kits or packets of materials prepared specifically for newspaper, magazine, radio and television media.

• Prepare model news releases which may be used by local groups in different places around your country.

• Draw up listings of articulate and, if possible, well known spokes-people to whom journalists may be referred. This is especially important for radio and TV media, which simply won't use dull voice or visuals.

• Prepare feature articles or inserts which may be given to media as 'ready to use' material.

• At an appropriate time, ads could be taken out in key press listing endorsers and calling for ratification of the Convention. At appropriate moments - for example when legislation is being debated in parliament - draw up newspaper advertisements calling for ratification and listing supporting individuals and organizations. In some countries, the costs of placing full page or half page ads is covered by asking each listed endorser to contribute an amount towards to total cost.

Training organizers and advocates

Developing an effective and professional approach to campaigning involves particular skills. Building the capacity of the local and national activists is an essential element of building the campaign. This campaigner's handbook is a contribution to such training. Other elements could include:

• Establishing one-time or regular capacity building workshops. They may be organized to attract representatives from each of the different organizations involved, or to train selected persons with specific skills.

In addition to local and national approaches, consideration should be given to organizing such events on an international basis within regions or among neighboring countries. The global campaign seeks to make available both materials and resource persons for such training.

• Provide a training for coalition members and other interested parties on the Convention.

Building institutional support

Promoting formal endorsement of the Convention and campaign can be an effective means of awareness raising and broadening explicit political support. Options include:

• Request that the governing body, board and or membership assembly of every campaign member group formally endorse the Convention. Introduce and debate a resolution that will ensure that the issue is heard.

• Seek a broad list of endorsers for the Convention and the campaign. It is often useful to include 'opinion leaders' from different sectors in such lists to promote wider interest and to impress upon government the breadth and depth of support.

• Seek specific resolutions of support from various sectors and institutions, including local and regional governmental bodies, and ensure that such resolutions are directed to appropriate governmental bodies

• Use the Convention as a focal point for local hearings on migrant conditions, which could be convened by the campaign coalition or held under the auspices of a local 'official' body. The hearings could produce a report which utilizes the Convention's provisions, and then be provided to government entities.

Advocacy with the State

Attention must be given to the specific requirements and practices of each country with regards to ratification of international treaties. Movements and organizations that have been key to promoting ratification of other UN instruments - such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the campaign to ban anti-personnel land mines - may have useful lessons in this regard.

While in some countries there may be strong possibilities of moving through a ratification process relatively quickly, in other countries ratification is only a remote possibility which indicates the need for an extensive period of building public support and support from policy makers. Regardless, in each country, and particularly those that are prime targets for ratification, Convention advocates need to be poised to act as the political opportunity presents itself.

In a few countries, ratification may be achieved more rapidly and successfully through a 'quiet' campaign by knowledgeable and influential people with appropriate government representatives and politicians. This may involve building contacts and making inquiries with the relevant government administrative and parliamentary offices, particularly relating to foreign affairs, justice or interior ministries, and labor branches. It may also involve organizing or arranging meetings between influential supporters such as national church, trade union, business leaders and government officials in important positions.

Regardless of the projected timetable for ratification, getting the Convention signed by the executive branch may be an intermediate step to put consideration of ratification on the national agenda. This could be urged through a variety of means, including broad public pressure and specific political appeals.

When the Convention is at a stage where it is being considered for ratification, campaign tactics will need to be more focused on gaining the specific support of policy makers at each step of what may be a protracted process.

Beyond ratification

Campaigning for the Convention on migrant workers is one main approach to promoting respect for the basic human rights of migrants. It is not the only one. The work will by no means be completed when your country ratifies the Convention.

Other important areas of activity might include:

• Establishing monitoring processes to identify violations of migrants' rights and pursue legal and other remedies (whether or not the Convention is ratified in your country)

• Seeking to contribute data for national reports to international "treaty bodies"

• Preparing separate non-governmental reports to those bodies

• Participating in regional and global international conferences.

Monitoring

A significant function of a national campaign committee can be that of actually monitoring and documenting abuses of migrants' rights, in order to strengthen the case for the Convention and to implement legislation. This may be developed through establishing a monitoring team within the national campaign committee. There may be other options, for example asking a national human rights, civil rights, or lawyers organization to set up a monitoring process.

Monitoring involves identifying and carefully documenting cases of abuse. It should also include a thorough review of existing legislation to determine where there may be provisions applicable to sanctioning violations of rights and their perpetrators, and also seeking redress and compensation for the victims. Such a review will also determine where the gaps are, most of which would be filled if the Convention standards were implemented.

A monitoring process should provide reliable data to demonstrate the nature and extent of problems, as well as prove why it is important for the Convention on migrant workers' rights to be ratified by the government.

National reports to treaty bodies

Today, nearly all countries in most regions are States Parties to one or several of the major international human rights instruments. Most of these treaties have established treaty bodies to monitor and review implementation. States Parties are mandated to provide regular reports to these treaty bodies. This process, as distant as it may seem from local priorities, can be of great importance for human rights advocates. The treaty bodies, and reports submitted to them, are ultimately visible, public, international platforms on which the behavior of individual countries is examined. Few States can ignore or dismiss the negative international image and publicity generated if situations of domestic violations are exposed. International review of difficulties can thus be a powerful incentive from outside to push governments to improve, complementing internal domestic advocacy efforts.

Many of the provisions in the major human rights treaties are applicable to migrants, whether or not they explicitly state so. Thus the treatment of migrant women and children, for example, can be raised in the monitoring and reviewing of implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The situation of human rights of migrants should be included in the preparation of national reports to treaty bodies. In some cases, the government offices responsible for preparing these reports may be open to receiving input, data and comments from non-governmental sources. In most cases, it is national human rights offices - usually government related - or offices within the foreign ministry which are responsible for preparation of reports. To start with, it is necessary to find out where the reports are compiled, who produces them, and whether outside contributions would be taken into account.

Whether or not access is given for NGO contributions to preparation of official government reports to treaty bodies, information and reports from NGOs are received directly by treaty bodies. In addition, well-documented and well-prepared alternative reports also may be very useful tools for domestic awareness raising, and for advocacy, for example with parliamentarians.

International networking and advocacy

In our inter-connected world, success of efforts such as entry into force of the Convention on migrant workers' rights are dependent on international cooperation, coordination and advocacy. As national campaigns develop, they will have much to learn from, and share with, others. Governments may be influenced and impressed if advocacy is coming from around the world as well as within their territories. Exposure of violations of rights of migrants is both necessary and often effective in getting remedies when it happens in international fora, such as the UN Commission on Human Rights.

All of these considerations indicate that national campaign plans should include an element of coordination within regions and world-wide. With the growing concern on migration prompting an increasing number of events and fora, it may not be easy to pick and chose. However, it will be important to develop some form of contact among campaigns in each region. In some cases, a regional approach to delegated participation at international conferences and UN bodies may be a most viable approach.