Protect Migrant Rights, Recognize Their Economic Value, and Strengthen Development Back Home
On International Migrants Day, Displaced International (DI) honors the courage, resilience, and everyday contributions of migrants around the world. Observed each year on 18 December—marking the UN General Assembly’s 1990 adoption of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families—this day is both a moment of recognition and a call to action: to value migrants’ contributions and to confront the human-rights challenges they still face worldwide.
Ambassador Ashraf Haidari, DI President and Founder, stated: “Migrants are not a statistic—but the numbers still tell a story: roughly 304 million people live outside their country of birth. They strengthen host economies and essential services, and the money they send home—about $685 billion to low- and middle-income countries in 2024—reduces poverty and directly finances families’ education, healthcare, and resilience. Yet too many pay a terrible price for seeking safety and opportunity, including 8,938 recorded deaths in 2024 alone. Protecting migrant rights is smart, responsible governance: it curbs abusive recruitment and trafficking, lifts labor standards for everyone, and strengthens trust in public institutions. When rights are protected, communities thrive; when they are denied, exploitation spreads, and economies are weakened.”
Migrants strengthen host societies every day—in workplaces, classrooms, hospitals, farms, labs, and small businesses. Yet too many people on the move are met with fear, stigma, and scapegoating. Migrant workers, especially in low-wage and informal sectors, can face exploitation, wage theft, unsafe conditions, discrimination, arbitrary detention, and barriers to healthcare, education, and justice. No one should be denied dignity because they crossed a border to survive, work, or build a future.
On this day, DI urges governments, employers, and the international community to match their reliance on migrants’ labor and talent with real protection and inclusion. That means enforcing fair recruitment and labor standards, expanding safe and regular pathways, combating xenophobia with responsible leadership, ensuring due process, and guaranteeing access to basic services and legal remedies—regardless of status.
International Migrants Day is a reminder that migration, when governed humanely and responsibly, benefits everyone. Displaced International stands with migrants and migrant communities everywhere—and will continue advocating for practical, rights-based policies that protect people, strengthen economies, and support families and development in countries of origin.
