This report gives a broad overview of IOM return and reintegration trends, developments and related activities in 2020 with a breakdown of summary statistics on regional and country levels. It also illustrates innovative practices adopted by IOM offices worldwide in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing the Organization to continue providing return and reintegration support to migrants wishing to return home.
The practical guidelines contained in this publication provide guidance on how to determine the need for a response to migrants in situations of vulnerability, and on how to plan for, finance, monitor and evaluating such response, accordingly. This publication should be considered as complementing the IOM Handbook. Protection and Assistance for Migrants Vulnerable to Violence, Exploitation and Abuse (hereafter the IOM Handbook).
What makes migrants vulnerable to human trafficking and associated forms of exploitation and abuse? A new study, undertaken by Minderoo Foundation’s Walk Free initiative and IOM, examines the connection between migration and modern slavery, and focuses on which migrants are most vulnerable, and in what circumstances, to modern slavery.
The report explores various sites of vulnerability where migrants are particularly susceptible to human trafficking, forced labour and modern slavery. These include private dwellings, border crossings, irregular migration routes and conflict zones. The report illustrates that migrants are most vulnerable to exploitation in situations where the authority of the State and society are unable to protect them. It also analyses the characteristics of victims that are thought to contribute to their vulnerability. In addition, the study explains some characteristics of offenders, including worldviews that allow them to rationalize the exploitation of others. Lastly, the study looks at examples of enabling environments or contexts, such as restrictive immigration policies, that engender or exacerbate vulnerability.
Prepared for the Alliance 8.7 Action Group on Migration, the report examines the recent research literature through a crime prevention lens in order to identify a set of salient features that can help understand the relevant connections between migration and vulnerability to forced labour, human trafficking and modern slavery.
This study was made possible through funding provided by the Government of the United Kingdom through UK aid.
Many migrants experience violence, exploitation and abuse during and after their migratory journey. Addressing and reducing vulnerabilities in migration is one of the objectives of the newly adopted Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. However, this can be a challenge for protection actors and service providers, as there is no internationally accepted definition of “vulnerable migrant,” no clear procedures for identifying them, nor operational guidelines for their protection and assistance. To address this gap, IOM undertook development of the IOM Handbook on Protection and Assistance for Migrants Vulnerable to Violence, Exploitation and Abuse within the auspices of the Global Action against Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants (GLO.ACT). The Handbook is intended to support case managers, service providers, communities, humanitarian and development actors, States and other actors working to provide protection and assistance to migrants vulnerable to violence, exploitation and abuse.
IOM’s approach to migrant vulnerability is rooted in the belief that the human rights of all persons, including migrants, should be upheld and promoted and that migrants who are vulnerable, regardless of category or status, should be afforded the protection and assistance they require. IOM’s migrant vulnerability model was specifically developed to identify, protect and assist migrants who have experienced or are vulnerable to violence, exploitation and abuse – before, during or after migrating − and to guide the development and implementation of appropriate programmatic and structural interventions to reduce such vulnerabilities.
The Handbook recognize that migrants and their households and families, and the communities and groups to which they belong, are situated in a broader social environment, and that both resilience and vulnerability are determined by the presence, absence and interaction of risk and protection factors at the various levels – individual, household/family, community and structural. Each level also requires different approaches to address the risks of vulnerability, as outlined in each of the chapters in the Handbook.
Click here to download the full Handbook. Specific chapters can also be downloaded separately by clicking on the links below
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