Durrant Pate/Contributor

The United Nations (UN) Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers is urging Jamaica to discard its ‘outdated’ immigration laws that continue to penalise migrant workers and their families. 

The committee, which is a body of independent experts that works to protect the rights of the global migrant workforce, released its latest findings, which, while citing Jamaica’s obsolete immigration laws, commended the administration for making strides in combating human trafficking and ratifying international protections for domestic workers. 

The UN body expressed in their report, released on Thursday (April 24), concerns about migration-related legislation stemming from colonial times, which criminalises irregular migration and lacks due process safeguards.

It recommended that the State accelerate legislative reform initiated by the Ministry of Legal and Constitutional Affairs of obsolete laws affecting migrant workers and their families and harmonise migration-related legislation with the UN Migrant Workers Convention. 

Other recommendations

In particular, the committee recommended that irregular migration be decriminalised. It also urged the repeal of provisions on “prohibited immigrants”, which discriminate against migrants with disabilities and children of migrant workers in an irregular situation. In addition, the body of experts recommended that immigration detention be phased out. 

The report calls for Jamaican authorities to fast-track legal reforms and bring migration-related laws in line with international standards. 

The committee called for the practice of separating children of undocumented migrant workers in immigration detention from their parents and taking them into State care to be discontinued; and that appeals against expulsion decisions have automatic suspensive effect by law.

It recognised Jamaica’s efforts to combat trafficking in persons and welcomed the ratification of the ILO Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189), as well as the implementation of the “Vision 2030 Jamaica – National Development Plan”, aligned with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

These policies support efforts by Jamaica to address emigration and the brain drain strain on the country. The committee pointed to the limited number of social security agreements with countries hosting Jamaican migrants and encouraged Jamaica to pursue additional agreements to promote and protect the rights of migrant workers at home and abroad.