International Consultant to support Migration Programme - Homebased at UN Women

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

Women’s economic empowerment is essential to achieving sustainable development. Women workers transform local, national and regional economies across the Asia-Pacific through agricultural work, manufacturing, entrepreneurship and labour migration. A combination of discriminatory laws, policies and gendered social norms creates structural barriers for women seeking to realize their right to decent work and safe migration. This means women’s economic contributions are not translated effectively into increased social and economic equality.

Across the region, women continue to face barriers in accessing decent work, employment and income. Two in every three women are in informal employment, without labour law coverage, protection from discrimination, or access to social protection.1 The gap in labour force participation is also widening. Women and girls are over-represented in high risk categories of employment and comprise 71% of all victims/survivors of trafficking worldwide.

Since 2001, UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific has worked on empowering women migrant workers in the region and advocating for the protection and promotion of their rights. Most recently, UN Women together with International Organization for Migration (IOM) and International Labour Ogranization (ILO) launched a joint programme, Governance of Labour Migration in South and South-East Asia (GOALS) with the overall goal to ensure that labour migration is safe, orderly and regular for all women and men from the Colombo Process Member States through strengthened collaboration and effective labour migration governance. This joint initiative is supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). It is built on three inter-linked and inter-related outcomes; (1) Colombo Process Member States develop and progress actionable commitments for strengthened labour migration governance and policy coherence through multilateral dialogue; (2) Selected members states in South Asia have improved labour migration policies and practices, in particular on skills development and qualifications recognition, fostering fair and ethical recruitment, and sustainable reintegration; and (3) The evidence base on labour migration is strengthened to inform knowledge, dialogue, policy making and action. The duration of this joint programme is from August 2020 to July 2023.

UN Women ROAP’s 2019-2021 Strategic Note Commits To Ensuring That Women Workers, Including Women Migrant Workers, Contribute To Sustainable Development And Benefit From Reduced Social And Economic Inequality Through Decent Work And Safe Migration Across Three Key Areas