Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families

List of issues prior to submission of the second periodic report of Ghana *

Section I

A.General information

1.Please provide information on the domestic legal framework regarding the Convention, including the following:

(a)Laws enacted since the adoption of the previous concluding observations, and the policies, strategies and programmes governing migration;

(b)Measures taken to establish an entity to undertake work on migratory affairs, and coordination among institutions and services (para. 7) in relation to measures to implement the rights under the Convention;

(c)Measures taken within the framework of bilateral and multilateral agreements to protect migrant workers’ rights in transit and destination countries, especially with respect to social security, access to employment, transfers of funds and savings, detention, repatriation or expulsion, and family reunification procedures, specifying the cooperation arrangements in place with States that are not yet parties to the Convention, including States members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

2.Please provide information, with supporting data, on the progress that has been made and that is expected as a result of the implementation of the National Migration Policy for Ghana (2016) and the National Labour Migration Policy (2020–2024), on any efforts made or activities conducted to adopt a new national migration policy, on the Labour (Domestic Workers) Regulations, 2020, and other relevant policies and strategies and on the establishment of the national coordination mechanism on migration. Please describe specific, time-bound and measurable goals, targets and indicators for monitoring progress made through such actions in protecting the rights of Ghanaians who are working abroad.

3.Please outline the roles of bodies involved in the governance of migration, including the roles of the government ministries and institutions responsible for intergovernmental coordination aimed at ensuring the comprehensive and holistic implementation of the Convention in the State party, such as the Migration Unit under the Ministry of the Interior, the Diaspora Relations Office under the Office of the President, the Diaspora Affairs Bureau under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, the Labour Department, the National Development Planning Commission, the Ghana Refugee Board and the Ghana Immigration Service. Please include information on their mandates and available human, technical and financial resources, as well as monitoring activities and follow-up procedures, for promoting, protecting and fulfilling the rights of migrant workers and members of their families. Please provide specific information on what the Labour Department needs to perform its monitoring roles effectively, including to detect private employment agencies that are operating illegally, and to collaborate or cooperate with other stakeholders in this regard.

4.Please provide information on the cooperation and interaction between the State party, parliamentarians, civil society organizations and other social partners working on migrant workers’ rights in relation to the implementation of the Convention. Please indicate whether and how representatives of civil society organizations, as well as other stakeholders, such as parliamentarians, are envisaged to be involved in the preparation of the State party’s second periodic report (para. 49).

5.Please provide qualitative information and statistical data collected by the State party, including by the consular and diplomatic representations of the State party, disaggregated by sex, age, nationality, field of occupation, migration status and disability, on labour and skilled migration movements to and from the State party. In addition, please provide detailed information on returns and on labour and skilled migration-related issues, in particular issues related to circular migration, and on migrant children and their families, unaccompanied migrant children and children left behind by migrant parents, and migrants under temporary protection programmes. Please outline whether efforts in this regard have followed a human rights-based approach. Please also provide specific data on trafficking, and information on measures taken by the State party to establish a system for collecting data that are consistent and comparable across the various government institutions involved, including measures aimed at making the information public (para. 15).

6.Please provide information on the steps taken by the State party to promote, raise awareness of and conduct capacity-building on the Convention and the applicable legislative and regulatory framework among the general public, migrant workers and members of their families, including those in an irregular situation, asylum-seekers and migrants under temporary protection programmes, employers, teachers, health and social workers, labour inspectors, government officials, including embassy and consular personnel, border police and law enforcement officials, and members of the judiciary, civil society and the media (para. 17).

7.Please describe the measures taken by the State party to counter corruption perpetrated by officials from various institutions with responsibilities relating to the implementation of the Convention, and the efforts made to encourage migrant workers and members of their families claiming to be victims of corruption to report it (para. 19). Please also outline the efforts made to develop and implement systematic and regular gender-responsive and child‑sensitive training programmes on the human rights of migrant workers and members of their families for government officials providing legal and consular assistance to nationals of the State party abroad who are confronting migration-related issues, including trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants, discrimination, workplace abuse and exploitation, arrest, pretrial detention, immigration detention, imprisonment, expulsion and repatriation.

8.Please provide information and supporting data on the extent of the State party’s participation in the African Continental Free Trade Area and of its implementation of Support to Free Movement of Persons and Migration in West Africa, a project launched by ECOWAS to help its member States to collect and manage migration data. In particular, please provide information on:

(a)Steps taken to harmonize the process of collecting and managing migration data within ECOWAS;

(b)Measures taken to collect data from diplomatic and consular missions on registered migrants and migrants in an irregular situation.

9.Please provide information on the following in particular:

(a)Measures taken by the State party to ensure and promote safe and regular migration, to strengthen mechanisms to regulate and control private employment agencies, to combat recruitment agencies that are operating illegally and to prevent and penalize agencies that are involved in illicit practices, such as trafficking;

(b)Efforts made to combat the vulnerability of Ghanaians to trafficking owing to the blanket ban imposed on migration to the countries of the Gulf region;

(c)Progress made in acceding to the International Labour Organization (ILO) Migration for Employment Convention (Revised), 1949 (No. 97), and Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189) (paras. 10 and 11), as well as to the ILO Employment Policy Convention, 1964 (No. 122), Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions) Convention, 1975 (No. 143), Protocol of 1995 to the Labour Inspection Convention, 1947 (No. 81), and Protocol of 2014 to the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29), and to the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and the Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community relating to Free Movement of Persons, Right of Residence and Right of Establishment.

10.Please provide information on the progress made with regard to making the declarations provided for in articles 76 and 77 of the Convention (para. 9).

11.Please provide information on the progress made in strengthening the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, including to enable the Commission to perform its functions through its Migration Desk, established in 2023, with regard to, among other objectives, facilitating the provision of information on judicial and other remedies available to migrants in cases of violations of their rights. Please describe the measures taken to amend the Commission’s enabling law to explicitly mandate it to interact with regional and international human rights systems, encourage ratification of or accession to regional and international human rights instruments and conduct unannounced visits to all public and private places of deprivation of liberty. Please also describe the level of funding provided to the Commission and any improvements made with regard to its financial autonomy, the formalization and application of inclusive and transparent selection and appointment processes and the efforts made to ensure gender balance in its staff composition.

12.Please provide information on the roles of traditional or customary authorities with regard to the social and economic integration of migrant workers. Please describe the efforts made to increase awareness of challenges and improvements in the work of such authorities, including with regard to handling or resolving socioeconomic conflicts, addressing the needs of migrant workers and their family members through formal or informal arbitration systems and ensuring that migrants and their family members are properly taken into account in the context of locally applicable laws, power structures and social groups.

B.Information relating to the articles of the Convention

1.General principles

13.Please clarify the status of the Convention in the hierarchy of norms in the State party and provide information on provisions of the Convention that have been directly applied by public officials, as well as on current case law – that is, court decisions in which the Convention has been directly invoked (para. 23). Please also provide information on:

(a)The judicial and administrative entities competent to examine and decide on complaints from migrant workers and members of their families, including migrants in the informal labour sector, migrant domestic workers and workers in an irregular situation;

(b)The number and type of complaints examined by such entities in the past five years and their outcomes, disaggregated by sex, age and migratory status;

(c)Whether legal assistance was provided to the interested parties;

(d)Any redress, including compensation, provided to the victims of violations of Convention rights;

(e)Any measures taken to inform migrant workers and members of their families about the remedies available to them for violations of their rights.

14.Please provide information on restrictions placed on the full exercise of the rights of migrant workers and members of their families in the face of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, including measures to limit crossings at the borders of countries of origin, transit countries and destination countries and measures taken as a result of the state of emergency. Please indicate what steps were taken for the voluntary return of such persons to their countries of origin in the context of the pandemic. Please describe what has been done to ensure that the pandemic does not affect the processing of applications for asylum or immigration procedures, in particular to ensure that it does not lead to the suspension of those processes. Please state what efforts have been made on behalf of migrant workers and members of their families:

(a)To ensure that they are covered by national pandemic prevention and management plans and, in particular, that they have access to health services, including COVID-19 vaccines, without discrimination and regardless of their nationality or migration status, also providing supporting data and specific examples;

(b)To take the sanitary measures necessary to prevent the spread of the disease and maintain the desired level of health protection in their workplaces;

(c)To prevent infections in detention centres and provide health-care services to those who have been infected;

(d)To ensure that the families of migrant workers who have died of the disease are informed of their deaths and receive their remains;

(e)To protect their rights in other respects and mitigate the adverse effects of the pandemic, taking into account the joint guidance note of the Committee and the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the human rights of migrants.

15.Please provide information, covering the period since the adoption of the previous concluding observations, on the complaints brought by migrant workers and members of their families, including those in an irregular situation, that have been dealt with by the competent courts and other redress mechanisms and have resulted, where appropriate, in compensation. In addition, please describe the means by which migrant workers, including those in an irregular situation, are informed of the legal remedies available to them. Please also describe the measures in place to help migrant workers to gain access to justice (para. 23).

2.Part II of the Convention

Article 7

16.Please describe the measures taken to ensure that all migrant workers and members of their families in the State party or subject to its jurisdiction, whether or not they are in a regular situation, enjoy the rights provided for in the Convention without discrimination of any kind. In particular, please provide information on:

(a)The progress that has been made towards the adoption of a comprehensive anti‑discrimination legislative framework that ensures, inter alia, that all migrant workers and members of their families can exercise the rights under articles 1 (1) and 7 of the Convention, without distinction of any kind, and covers all the grounds on which discrimination is prohibited under the Convention, with reference to specific examples (para. 21);

(b)Measures taken to ensure that non-discrimination and the protection of labour rights and gender equality in all matters relating to migration policy prevail in law and in practice, specifying the mechanisms in place to assess the individual situations of migrants in transit and to determine their protection needs without discrimination, in accordance with international human rights law, international humanitarian law and international refugee law;

(c)Measures taken to guarantee non-discrimination and mitigate the impact of the effects of climate change, including natural disasters, such as floods, droughts, tropical storms and bush fires caused by desertification, and environmental degradation, on the human rights of migrants, as well as to contribute to greater climate justice, including efforts to fill the gaps in the existing National Disaster Management Plan (2010) and the overall disaster management framework, which lack specific provisions on assistance for immigrants living in the country and nationals living abroad in times of crisis and lack specific support for refugees or internally displaced persons.

17.Please inform the Committee of any cases of racism, xenophobia, discrimination, ill‑treatment or violence, including gender-based violence, to which migrant workers and members of their families have been subjected in the State party or in States in which migrant workers from Ghana are employed and provide information on the normative, institutional and procedural measures adopted by the State party to prevent, combat and remedy such practices, with a view to protecting the rights of victims, not least their right to justice. Please clarify whether migrant women and girls stand to benefit from the National Gender Policy (2015), the National Strategic Framework on Ending Child Marriage in Ghana (2017–2026) and the action plan on Security Council resolution 1325 (2000) on women and peace and security (2020–2025). Please provide supporting information on the extent to which those texts have been implemented.

3.Part III of the Convention

Articles 8 to 15

18.Please provide information on:

(a)Progress towards the prevention and elimination of labour exploitation, including slavery, forced labour and begging, to which migrant workers, including those in an irregular situation, women and children, are subjected;

(b)The institutions responsible for detecting the illegal employment of migrant workers;

(c)Migrant workers coerced into exploitative labour practices, with supporting statistics, including the number of complaints filed in that respect, and the results of the investigations into those complaints, including prosecutions, sentences and compensation obtained by the victims.

19.Please describe the measures taken to ensure that the rights of migrant children, in particular those who are unaccompanied, in an irregular situation or transiting through the State party, are respected and that they are protected from all forms of exploitation, in line with joint general comment No. 4 of the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families/No. 23 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (2017) on State obligations regarding the human rights of children in the context of international migration in countries of origin, transit, destination and return. Please indicate the measures taken or envisaged by the State party to give effect to the ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182), including to draw up a list of the types of work concerned and set up a labour inspection system. Please also provide:

(a)Information on the progress made in concluding formal agreements with neighbouring countries concerning trafficking in children;

(b)Data on trafficked children, including the number of investigations into and prosecutions of trafficking offences;

(c)Information on protective mechanisms and services to safeguard children who are at risk of being subjected to trafficking.

Articles 16 to 22

20.Please provide detailed disaggregated information on the number of migrant workers detained for immigration offences and the place, average duration and conditions of their detention, in accordance with the Committee’s general comment No. 5 (2021) on migrants’ rights to liberty and freedom from arbitrary detention and their connection with other human rights. Please describe whether migrant workers detained for violations of immigration law are held in special facilities, separately from ordinary prisoners, and in particular:

(a)Whether persons detained for immigration-related reasons are systematically separated from ordinary prisoners and whether conditions of overcrowding are mitigated;

(b)Whether women are separated from men;

(c)Whether women prisoners are under the supervision of women guards;

(d)Whether victims of trafficking are identified and provided with adequate protection and redress.

21.Please provide updated information, including disaggregated statistics, on the number of expulsions of migrant workers and members of their families, as well as on the procedures used and the guarantees ensured with regard to criminal or administrative charges (para. 25).

22.Please describe the measures taken to ensure that all migrant workers and members of their families have recourse to consular support for the protection of the rights set out in the Convention. Please outline the efforts made with regard to awareness-raising and training for embassy and consulate personnel abroad on the laws and procedures of the countries of employment of Ghanaian migrant workers (paras. 27 and 41).

23.Please provide information on border control measures, in particular with respect both to the procedures applicable to migrant workers and asylum-seekers arriving at the borders of the State party and to reception facilities and the ways in which they operate and are funded. Please also indicate the efforts made to process requests for protection, in particular to ensure that those in an irregular situation are afforded due process, with legal assistance and interpretation services, if required, and access to information in a language that they understand.

24.Please describe the measures that have been taken to ensure that children and families are never detained for reasons related to immigration enforcement and that alternatives to detention that are designed to protect children’s rights are available, in line with joint general comment No. 4 of the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families/No. 23 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (2017). In line with the Committee’s general comment No. 5 (2021), please also provide information on:

(a)The provision of alternatives to detention, in particular in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, to protect migrants’ dignity, health and well-being, instead of custodial measures that have negative effects on migrants’ health and personal safety, in particular post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide risks;

(b)The use of criminal justice measures, such as bail, home confinement and other restrictions on movement, including electronic surveillance or periodic reporting to the authorities, as alternatives to immigration detention, or the prohibition of such measures in law and practice in connection with immigration;

(c)The arrangements for subcontracting the management or security of immigration detention centres to private enterprises and, if there are such arrangements, what safeguards are in place to hold private security personnel in detention centres accountable for potential abuses or human rights violations.

Article 23

25.Please describe the measures taken to ensure that consular services respond effectively to the protection and assistance needs of Ghanaian migrant workers and members of their families abroad, including those in an irregular situation, and in particular those who are victims of abuse, deprived of their liberty and/or subject to expulsion measures. Please indicate the measures taken to strengthen the presence of consular facilities in border areas. Please provide details of the efforts made to inform Ghanaian migrant workers abroad and members of their families about ways of gaining access to consular services and to increase collaboration with host countries, as well as the financial and human resources allocated to consular offices specifically for work of that kind.

Articles 25 to 30

26.Please provide information on:

(a)Existing legal and labour protection and enforcement mechanisms to ensure that migrant workers, including migrant women, enjoy treatment not less favourable than that which applies to nationals in respect of remuneration and conditions of work;

(b)Whether priority is given to nationals in matters of employment, contrary to the principle of equal treatment;

(c)Measures taken to promote the rights to equal pay and social security of Ghanaian migrant workers abroad;

(d)Measures taken to facilitate subscription to a social security scheme and ensure that migrant workers and members of their families are informed of their rights in that regard (para. 29);

(e)Measures taken to ensure that bilateral and multilateral agreements on labour migration include social security provisions in order to facilitate the transfer of social security contributions paid by Ghanaian nationals to countries of migration, to create a mechanism for extending social security coverage to the families of Ghanaian nationals working abroad and to enable women, who work mainly in the informal sector and have thus far had limited access to social security, to benefit fully from it (para. 29).

27.Please provide information on the measures taken:

(a)To ensure access to health care, including emergency medical care, for all migrant workers and members of their families, including those in an irregular situation and those who have been victims of violence, in particular gender-based violence;

(b)To guarantee that the births of children of migrant workers are registered, regardless of the parents’ migratory status, and that those children are provided with personal identity documents;

(c)To ensure that the children of migrant workers, including those in an irregular situation and asylum-seekers, have full access to education, also providing disaggregated data on access to schools;

(d)To guarantee that health facilities and schools are not obliged to report children with an irregular migration status to the authorities.

4.Part IV of the Convention

Article 40

28.Please provide information on measures to guarantee to migrant workers and members of their families, both in law and in practice, the right to form, and be a member of the executive bodies of, associations and unions for the promotion and protection of their economic, social, cultural and other interests, in accordance with article 40 of the Convention (para. 35).

29.Please provide information on:

(a)Targeted pre-departure and awareness-raising programmes for Ghanaian nationals wishing to emigrate, including the information provided on the conditions of their admission and employment and on their rights and obligations in the State of employment;

(b)Measures taken to strengthen regulatory and supervisory mechanisms for private recruitment agencies, including regular checks, to prevent abusive recruitment practices.

Articles 41 and 42

30.Please provide information on the measures taken:

(a)To ensure that Ghanaian migrant workers residing abroad and members of their families are able to exercise their rights to vote, participate in public affairs and be elected to public office, with reference to the previous elections (para. 37), and the efforts envisaged for the forthcoming election in December 2024;

(b)To establish procedures or institutions with freely chosen representatives to take into account the special needs, aspirations and obligations of migrant workers and members of their families both in States of origin and in States of employment.

Articles 44 and 50

31.Please describe the measures taken:

(a)To ensure the protection of the unity of the families of migrant workers and facilitate the reunification of migrant workers with their spouses or persons with whom they are in a relationship that, according to applicable law, produces effects equivalent to marriage, as well as with their dependent unmarried children, including in the context of expulsion procedures;

(b)To grant residence permits to family members in the case of death of a migrant worker or dissolution of marriage.

Articles 46 to 48

32.Please provide information on:

(a)Legislation relating to import and export duties and taxes in respect of personal and household effects, as well as necessary work-related equipment, of migrant workers and the implementation of that legislation;

(b)Existing policies to enhance the portability of social security and other entitlements and benefits and the implementation of those policies;

(c)Measures taken to avoid double taxation of the earnings and savings of migrant workers and members of their families;

(d)Existing policies to facilitate financial services, including for migrants without access to the national identity card system, as well as the implementation of those policies, and the legal framework granting migrant workers the right to transfer their earnings and savings, or remittances, from the State of employment to the State of origin.

Article 49

33.Please indicate:

(a)The measures taken to ensure that, in the event that their remunerated activity is terminated before the expiration of their work permit, migrant workers do not have their residence permit withdrawn and thus risk falling into an irregular situation, at least for a period corresponding to that during which they may be entitled to unemployment benefits;

(b)The measures taken, including the legal grounds, if there are any, that allow migrant workers to remain in the State party upon termination of their contracts, regardless of the reason for such termination, in order to seek alternative employment and to participate in public work schemes and retraining activities.

5.Part V of the Convention

Articles 58 to 63

34.Please provide information on measures taken to ensure that frontier, seasonal and itinerant workers enjoy treatment equal to that enjoyed by national workers, in particular with respect to remuneration and conditions of work, and to ensure systematic monitoring by the relevant authorities of employers’ compliance with relevant international labour standards.

6.Part VI of the Convention

Article 64

35.Please provide information on measures taken, including consultations and cooperation with other States, to promote sound, equitable and humane conditions in connection with the international movement of migrant workers and members of their families, including through multilateral and bilateral agreements. Please include information on how such measures have been mainstreamed in overall migration policies and programmes, including the National Migration Policy, and how they address the social, economic, cultural and other needs of migrant workers and members of their families.

36.Please describe the measures taken to address the irregular migration of nationals of the State party, including through multilateral and bilateral agreements, policies and programmes aimed at enhancing regular migration pathways and at addressing the root causes of irregular migration. Please indicate how these measures have been integrated into overall migration policies and programmes and whether assessments have been undertaken to determine their impact on the number of irregular migrants. Please provide information on campaigns aimed at countering misleading information relating to irregular migration and raising awareness among the population, including women and children, of the risks and dangers of irregular migration and on the measures taken to assist returning migrant workers and members of their families with resettlement and reintegration into the economic and social life of the State party.

Article 67

37.Please provide information on:

(a)The current status of the legal framework for the assistance, protection and reintegration of returning migrant workers and returnees and the progress that has been made in developing an appropriate legal framework in that regard (para. 43), also in the light of the lack of specific provisions in the National Migration Policy to accommodate the return (or protection of the assets) of migrants who flee the country during crises;

(b)Cooperation programmes and readmission agreements in place between the State party and relevant States of employment for the voluntary return of migrant workers and members of their families to the State party to facilitate their sustainable reintegration when they decide to return or when they are in the State of employment in an irregular situation;

(c)Cooperation programmes between the State party and relevant States of employment on promoting adequate economic conditions for the resettlement and reintegration of migrant workers in a regular situation in the State party;

(d)Measures taken to assist returning migrant workers and members of their families, including by promoting conditions that facilitate their reception and reintegration and by recognizing practical work experience and occupational qualifications acquired abroad;

(e)Disaggregated statistical data on readmitted migrants.

Article 68

38.Please provide information on the measures taken, since the Committee’s previous concluding observations, to prevent and combat trafficking in persons, especially women and children, including through international, regional and bilateral cooperation with countries of origin, transit and destination, and on the relevant resources, including human and financial resources, allocated to this end. Please indicate the steps taken to implement effectively the laws and policies on combating trafficking in persons, including the Human Trafficking Act and the Immigration (Amendment) Act and its regulations (para. 45), in order to prevent and combat trafficking in persons, especially women and children. In particular, please elaborate on:

(a)Programmes to prevent smuggling and trafficking in persons and to protect victims and ensure their access to justice and legal remedies, including in rural and border areas, ensuring effective coordination between the local and centralized levels of government, as well as with civil society;

(b)Efforts made to effectively and impartially investigate all acts of smuggling and trafficking in persons and to prosecute and punish perpetrators and accomplices, including public officials, and the number of judgments issued, the number of convictions handed down, the type of sentences imposed and the reparations provided to the victims;

(c)Measures taken to combat smuggling networks;

(d)The status of implementation of the national trafficking in persons referral and guidance mechanism, indicating whether it is known to stakeholders and beneficiaries, in particular women and children, and the accessibility of its offices throughout the territory of the State party;

(e)Measures taken to ensure that women in transit who are stranded in the State party are not forced to resort to prostitution in order to survive, and to combat sexual exploitation;

(f)Capacity-building programmes on human rights and smuggling and trafficking in persons and the measures taken to provide appropriate training to law enforcement officers, judges, prosecutors, labour inspectors, service providers, teachers, embassy and consulate staff, media workers and other relevant professionals in the State party;

(g)The annual budget for human, technical and financial resources to detect and eliminate smuggling and trafficking in persons and to provide protection, rehabilitation and reparation to women, men and children who are victims, including through the adequate provision of shelter, counselling and psychological support facilities;

(h)Measures taken to strengthen the collection of data on victims, disaggregated by sex, age and origin, in order to prevent smuggling and trafficking in persons;

(i)Provisions for victims of smuggling and trafficking in persons, including with regard to the granting of temporary or permanent residence permits;

(j)Measures taken to widely disseminate information on smuggling and trafficking in persons, the risks associated with irregular migration and desert crossings, and assistance to victims, including through prevention campaigns, and to combat the dissemination of misleading information relating to emigration and immigration;

(k)Measures taken to strengthen international, regional and bilateral cooperation to prevent and combat smuggling and trafficking in persons;

(l)Measures taken to ensure public awareness of the risks of crossing the Sahara desert, including through collaboration with media and law enforcement (para. 33), to search for and rescue migrants who have disappeared during arduous journeys, indicating whether efforts have been made to ensure that preventive measures, effective and thorough investigations, the use of forensic information, the exhumation and identification of remains and international cooperation with regard to the disappearance of migrants are provided for in national legislation.

Article 69

39.Please provide information on any measures taken to ensure that migrant workers and members of their families in an irregular situation in the State party have the opportunity to regularize their situation in accordance with the provisions of article 69 of the Convention and to ensure that migrant workers in an irregular situation are informed about such procedures (para. 47). Please describe actions taken by the State party, including through bilateral and multilateral agreements, to improve the protection and assistance afforded to its nationals abroad, including efforts to promote the regularization of their situation. Please provide concrete examples and data.

Section II

40.The Committee invites the State party to provide information, not to exceed three pages, regarding the protection of migrant workers and members of their families with respect to the following:

(a)Bills or laws and their respective regulations;

(b)Institutions and their mandates or institutional reforms;

(c)Policies, programmes and action plans covering migration and their scope and financing;

(d)Recent ratifications of human rights instruments and other relevant instruments;

(e)Recent comprehensive studies on the situation of migrant workers and members of their families.

Section III

Data, official estimates, statistics and other information

41.Please provide updated disaggregated statistical data and qualitative information covering the period since the adoption of the Committee’s previous concluding observations, unless indicated otherwise, on the following:

(a)The volume and nature of migratory movements to, from and in transit through the State party since the Convention entered into force in the State party;

(b)Migrant workers in detention in the State party and migrant workers who are nationals of the State party and are detained abroad in States of employment, and whether such detention is immigration-related;

(c)Migrant workers and members of their families who have been expelled from the State party;

(d)The number of unaccompanied migrant children or migrant children separated from their parents in the State party;

(e)The number of migrant workers and members of their families who have contracted COVID-19, the number who have died as a result of COVID-19 and the number who have received a COVID-19 vaccine, disaggregated by sex, age and nationality;

(f)Remittances received from nationals of the State party working abroad, disaggregated by host country;

(g)Reported cases of trafficking in and smuggling of migrants, investigations, prosecutions and sentences imposed on perpetrators, disaggregated by sex, age, nationality and purpose of trafficking;

(h)Legal assistance services provided to migrant workers and members of their families in the State party and to nationals working abroad or in transit through third States.

42.Please provide any additional information on any important developments and measures in implementation of the Convention relating to protection of the rights of migrant workers and members of their families that are considered a priority.

43.Please submit a common core document in line with the harmonized guidelines on reporting. In accordance with General Assembly resolution 68/268, paragraph 16, the common core document should not exceed 42,400 words.