Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All

Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families

Forty-first session

Summary record ( p artial )* of th e 626th meeting**

Held at the Palais Wilson, Geneva, on Thursday, 11 December 2025, at 5.30 p.m.

Chair:Ms. Diallo

Contents

Organizational matters

Closure of the session

The discussion covered in the summary record began at 5.45 p.m.

Organizational matters

The Chair said that, during the forty-first session, the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination had issued, respectively, general comments No. 7 and No. 8 and general recommendations No. 38 and No.39. The purpose of the joint initiative – which had been officially launched on 5 December – was to address the growing problem of xenophobia and its impact on the rights of migrants and others perceived as such, as well as on their families and other non-citizens affected by racial discrimination.

In a world where migrants were increasingly being presented as a threat, the comments/recommendations sought to draw attention to the fact that the xenophobia they faced was not an isolated phenomenon but was rooted in structural racism, fed by inflammatory and misleading political discourse and amplified by the media and digital platforms. The result was not just exclusion and marginalization, it also led to grave human rights violations including violence, ill-treatment, racial profiling and the denial of fundamental economic, social and cultural rights.

One particularly pernicious outcome was the growing tendency to criminalize migration, which further perpetuated the cycle of exclusion and marginalization, and disproportionately affected irregular migrants. Over recent years, in fact, the closure of safe and regular migration routes had made irregular migration a structural part of human mobility, leaving irregular migrants particularly vulnerable to xenophobia and other intersecting forms of discrimination. It was important to recall, nonetheless, that irregular migration was not a free choice. For many people, it was the only opportunity they had to exercise their right to leave their country in order to seek asylum or reunite with their families. Thus, irregular migration should not be treated as a crime, but as an indicator of vulnerability, one that was often linked to a pre-existing privation of rights. In the light of that, States dealing with irregular migrants should seek alternatives to expulsion – which had devastating consequences for multiple rights, notably those of children – and favour pathways to regularization based on human rights-related considerations such as family or community ties.

In that connection, the comments/recommendations of the Committee and of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination provided detailed guidance on how to promote ethical and responsible public communication on migration-related issues. They also called for cross-sectoral action to dismantle the structural underpinnings of xenophobia and highlighted the importance of recognizing the intersectional discrimination often faced by women, children, persons with disabilities and persons of African origin, among others. Furthermore, the two Committees called on States to review laws, policies and frameworks in order to guarantee protection against xenophobia and discrimination for migrants and members of their families, including irregular migrants, at every stage of their migration.

Of all the core international human rights instruments, the Convention remained the one with the fewest ratifications, just 60 to date, and it remained a matter of priority for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to increase that number. The joint comments/recommendations highlighted the ongoing relevance that the work of the Committee had for all States, and she wished to appeal to States, including those that had signed but not yet ratified the Convention, to enter into dialogue with OHCHR to discuss the advantages that ratification would bring.

Turning to other activities undertaken during the forty-first session, she noted that the Committee had held a public meeting with civil society organizations and national human rights institutions in relation to the second periodic reports of Mauritania, Indonesia and Honduras. It had also held a closed meeting on the same subject with United Nations agencies and specialized organizations. The Committee had then gone on to hold constructive dialogues with representatives of Mauritania, Indonesia and Honduras and concluding observations had been adopted on the second periodic report of each of those nations. The Committee had also adopted lists of issues prior to reporting, under the traditional reporting procedure, on the fourth periodic report of Colombia and, under the simplified reporting procedure, on the third periodic report of Albania and the second periodic report of Uganda.

The Committee had been briefed on the impact the United Nations liquidity crisis was having on its work and on the current state of advancement of the UN80 Initiative, which had been launched by the Secretary-General earlier in the year. The briefing had served to highlight the gravity of the financial situation facing the Organization and had drawn attention to the need for all members of the Committee to redouble their efforts and to find innovative solutions that would enable the Committee to continue to fulfil its mandate. The Committee had also been briefed on migration-related OHCHR programmes and on the current status of operations of the United Nations Network on Migration and of the Global Migration Group.

She herself had recently met with the Director of the Human Rights Council and Treaty Mechanisms Division of OHCHR to raise concerns about the liquidity crisis, in the light of which the Committee’s own advocacy efforts were particularly important. The regional consultations held jointly with the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination were an example of good practice. The Committee had endorsed the provisional list of State party reports to be examined at its forty-second and forty-third sessions and had identified country rapporteurs for that purpose, although the list was subject to change in view of human resource constraints.

Closure of the session

The Chair, following the customary exchange of courtesies, declared the forty-first session of the Committee on Migrant Workers closed.

The meeting rose at 6.10 p.m.