Responsible Recruitment Gateway

The Responsible Recruitment Gateway is home to the Employer Pays Principle increasingly being adopted by companies across sectors and around the world.

The Gateway hosts a growing resource bank to help companies move towards an ethical recruitment.

It is also a platform for the Leadership Group for Responsible Recruitment, convened by IHRB. All members of the Leadership Group are publicly committed to the Employer Pays Principle and its implementation throughout their supply chains. The Leadership Group's aim is bold - the total eradication of fees being charged to migrant workers to secure employment

The Leadership Group acts as a vehicle for advocacy and collaboration, and serves as a knowledge hub for sharing good practice, tools, and guidance in relation to responsible recruitment. To achieve its vision of a world where no worker pays fees to secure employment, the Leadership Group seeks to catalyse leadership among an expanding membership base of companies committed to responsible recruitment.

Responsible Recruitment: Remediating Worker-Paid Recruitment Fees

This report focuses on the sixth step concerning remediation. Some companies have sought to reimburse worker-paid recruitment fees. This is an important step and consistent with the UNGPs which calls on companies to provide for or cooperate in remediation when they have caused or contributed to adverse human rights impacts. However, businesses face serious challenges in repaying affected migrant workers. This report identifies the challenges related to reimbursing recruitment fees and provides recommendations to businesses on how to apply remediation policies across their activities.

IOM training on ethical recruitment

The International Organization for Migration supports recruiters, suppliers (employers) and brands to strengthen their internal control mechanisms and implement ethical recruitment practices through its two initiatives:

IRIS: Ethical Recruitment, is IOM's flagship initiative to promote ethical recruitment which is fair for everyone involved: migrant workers, employers, recruiters and countries of origin and destination. IRIS, as a global multi-stakeholder initiative works with and supports governments, civil society, the private sector and recruiters to establish ethical recruitment as a norm in cross-border labour migration. Read more at iris.iom.int

The Corporate Responsibility in Eliminating Slavery and Trafficking (CREST) is a partnership initiative that aims to realize the potential of business to uphold the human and labour rights of migrant workers in their operations and supply chains. Read more at crest.iom.int

IRIS Ethical Recruitment

IRIS: Ethical Recruitment is IOM's flagship initiative to promote ethical recruitment of migrant workers. It has been created by IOM and a coalition of partners from government, civil society and the private sector. IRIS is a global multi-stakeholder initiative that supports governments, civil society, the private sector and recruiters to establish ethical recruitment as a norm in cross-border labour migration.

The goal of IRIS is to make international recruitment fair for everyone involved: migrant workers, employers, recruiters and countries of origin and destination. It does this by:

• Promoting respect for the rights of migrant workers;
• Enhancing transparency and accountability in recruitment;
• Advancing the Employer Pays Principle; and
• Strengthening public policies, regulations and enforcement mechanisms.

IRIS is referred to under Objective 6 of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and a number of other inter-governmental frameworks.

IRIS priorities include: 1) awareness raising and capacity building, 2) migrant worker voice and empowerment, 3) the regulation of international recruitment, 4) voluntary certification of private recruitment agencies, and 5) stakeholder partnership and dialogue.

ITUC Economic Briefing: Ensuring Migrants’ Access to Social Protection

Social protection is a universal human right, providing people with security against poverty, vulnerability and social exclusion. It is moreover a catalyst for inclusive economic growth.

Despite numerous international commitments to extend social protection, nearly half of the world’s population lack any access to these critical benefits and services, and coverage gaps are especially acute in low and middle-income countries.

Migrants are disproportionately excluded from social protection schemes, and their economic vulnerability is compounded by their underrepresentation in the labor market, concentration in precarious and low-paid work, discriminatory laws and entrenched xenophobia.

Legal exclusions to accessing social protection benefits, insufficient build-up of social security contributions within destination countries, lack of possibilities to preserve or transfer social security contributions within destination countries, practical barriers to accessing benefits, and migrant’s labour market exclusion are some of the main reasons for their lack of access. Increased globalization, conflict, demographic change and climate change – and the resulting migration due to these trends – all raise concerns about how to better address migrants’ vulnerability.

This brief examines the reasons for migrants’ exclusion from social protection systems and reviews some ways for closing these coverage gaps. It moreover outlines existing international frameworks related to migration and social protection, as well as provides some selected good practices at national level. Finally, it sets out unions’ key demands for ensuring universal social protection systems that are inclusive of migrants.