As countries were hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, they began to withdraw onto themselves, jeopardizing collaborative work for a more just migration system. This unilateralism is one of the biggest challenges for labor migrants today, says William Gois, Regional Coordinator of the Migrant Forum in Asia.

Migrant workers who have lost their jobs were repatriated without having been paid their wages. “We are talking about millions of workers,” he says. “This has a huge impact on the development of families.” It is time to devise social protection and welfare programs from which migrant workers can benefit.

Civil society is calling upon governments and the private sector to create partnerships to fix the most pressing and urgent issues that COVID-19 has brought to the forefront. “Never before have we been challenged in everything that we do to put migrants at the center of it all. Now more than ever, we have to make that a starting point at this year’s Global Forum on Migration and Development,” says Gois.