Promoting and Protecting the Rights of Migrant Workers The Role of National Human Rights Institutions 2.1. ILO conventions and recommendations specific to migrant workers The ILO has adopted two legally-binding instruments specifically on migrant workers: • Migration for Employment Convention, 1949 (C-97) • Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions) Convention, 1975 (C-143). These instruments promote the principles of equal treatment, equality of opportunity and nondiscrimination. A total of 49 countries have ratified C-97 and 23 countries have ratified C-143.106 Only two countries with NHRIs that are members of the APF – the Philippines and New Zealand – have ratified C-97; and only the Philippines has ratified C-143. The Migration for Employment Convention, 1949 provides a framework to regulate and provide protection to a “migrant for employment” at all stages of the migration process. Member States must provide assistance and information on departure, journey and entry, including medical assistance. They must also take steps to eliminate misleading propaganda on emigration and immigration and to prevent the expulsion of irregular migrants. The Convention defines a migrant for employment as a person who migrates from one country to another with a view to being employed otherwise than on his or her own account and includes any person regularly admitted as a migrant for employment (article 11). It therefore applies to regular migrants (article 8) and is not applicable to frontier workers, seamen, short-term entry of members of the liberal professions and artistes, or to self-employed foreign migrants. Photo by Richard Messenger. 106 For a list of countries that have ratified these conventions, see the “Standards” section of “MIGRANT: International Migration Branch”; ILO; www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/migrant/areas/standards.htm. 42 | Chapter 4: The International Labour Organization and migrant workers