Strengthening Protection for Intra-ASEAN Migrant Workers’ Rights to Social Security: A Perspective from the Post-2015 ASEAN Vision

Sammanfattning: This thesis explores the extent to which international human rights law and international labour law place obligations on States to protect migrant workers’ fundamental rights, especially their rights to social security. More importantly, this thesis examines intra-ASEAN migrant workers’ accesses to the social security benefits, as defined by the ILO Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention, 1952 (No.102), in the ten ASEAN Member States. Considering the fact that most ASEAN Member States have not implemented social security programmes for unemployment benefits, and family benefits, this thesis thus only examine intra-ASEAN migrant workers’ access to the seven branches of social security benefits, namely medical care benefits, sickness benefits, maternity benefits, invalidity benefits, old age benefits, survivors’ benefits and employment injury benefits. The study is based on the available literature and secondary data. The purpose of this thesis is to determine whether ASEAN Member States live up to their commitments to protect all ASEAN people, especially migrant workers’ rights to social security. The main conclusions of this thesis are: 1) there is a big gap between intra- ASEAN migrant workers’ rights to social security in principle and intra- ASEAN migrant workers’ access to social security benefits in practice; 2) although most ASEAN Member States do not directly exclude intra-ASEAN migrant workers from the coverage of social security programmes, a number of restrictions which have been imposed on the social security programmes are limiting intra-ASEAN migrant workers’ equitable access to social security; 3) no bilateral or multilateral social security agreements have been signed among ASEAN Member States; 4) undocumented intra-ASEAN migrant workers are not covered by any social security system in any ASEAN Member States. At last, this thesis concludes with proposing recommendations based on these main findings.