Civil society organizations from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, joined forces to strengthen cross-border protection of women migrant workers and children, responding to persistent gaps that leave many without continuous support as they move across borders.
At the PROTECT Regional Civil Society Forum held in June in Jakarta, nearly 50 representatives of PROTECT-supported frontline organizations developed practical measures to strengthen cross-border cooperation, including referral pathway, a shared directory of services and secure communication channels to help ensure protection continues throughout the migration journey. Supported by the European Union (EU) and jointly implemented by the ILO, UN Women, UNICEF and UNODC, the Forum brought together organizations working across labour migration, gender-based violence, anti-trafficking, child protection and migrant worker organizing.
"We don't see civil society only as service providers, but as our partners. Civil society organizations are often the first point of contact for migrant women and children in situations of vulnerability," said Katerina Lopo, Political Adviser to the EU Delegation to ASEAN, European Commissioner.
Community-led approaches and the role of lived experience
Formal services often fail to reach women migrant workers when they need support most. Language barriers and fear of losing jobs or immigration status create gaps that peer networks and migrant-led associations help to fill, particularly for domestic workers, who remain among the least protected workers in the region.
"Migrant domestic workers are essential to Southeast Asian communities and economies. Our lived experiences and collective voices are vital to shaping the ASEAN migration agenda and we must have meaningful participation to ensure policies are inclusive, rights-based, just and responsive to the reality of migrant workers."
Bariyah Iyah, International Domestic Workers Federation
Peer networks often succeed where formal outreach cannot, building trust through shared experience and providing information in workers' own languages. Participants highlighted the value of returned migrant workers as community organizers and peer educators, whose lived experience enables them to reach women who might otherwise remain invisible to formal support services.
"The strength of a peer network is the trust it carries, but that trust has to be earned and protected," said Sokha Thim, Cambodian Women's Crisis Centre (CWCC).
Emerging risks: online exploitation, forced criminality and technology-facilitated harm
Emerging forms of technology-facilitated exploitation are creating new risks for migrant workers that existing legal frameworks are struggling to address. Participants identified risks including AI-generated non-consensual imagery, the exploitation of digital recruitment systems to collect personal data from women workers and online recruitment scams that lure migrants into forced criminality for scam operations across the region. They also stressed the need to strengthen victim identification, consistently apply the non-punishment principle and improve access to justice for survivors and migrants in detention.
We are seeing women lured with legitimate-sounding job offers, transported across borders under false pretenses, and forced to commit crimes under threat of violence. When they are intercepted, the system too often punishes them a second time. The non-punishment principle is not optional, it is the difference between a survivor getting help and a survivor getting a prison sentence.
Mechelle B.J. Moore, Global Alms Incorporated (Asia)
Protection across the migration cycle
The conversation underscored that protection must extend across the entire migration cycle, from supporting "left-behind" children to providing trauma-informed care for returnees facing debt and family separation and other reintegration challenges. While pre-departure support in countries of origin is improving, participants noted that it is often not matched by accessible services at destination or comprehensive reintegration support including psychosocial care and legal assistance.
"Return is not the end of the migration journey, it is the beginning of reintegration. By strengthening support for returning women and children as well as addressing the needs of children remaining behind, we can help families rebuild, reconnect and thrive," said Sina Yann, Damoen Toek, Cambodia.
Organizational sustainability and staff wellbeing
Participants also stressed that effective protection depends on strong and sustainable civil society organizations. They identified a growing gap between short-term project funding and the resources needed to maintain expert teams. Burnout and financial insecurity are driving experienced staff out of the sector, affecting the continuity and quality of survivor support.
Participants called for more flexible, longer-term investment in civil society that cover staffing, and operational costs, practitioner wellbeing and leadership development.
© ILO
Building blocks of cross-border collaboration
A key outcome of the Forum was to turn commitment into practice: through structured referral pathways, secure channels for case coordination, and clearer agreements between organizations working on either side of a border.
Participants identified several possible next steps: a shared directory of services and expertise so caseworkers can quickly identify where to refer a case across borders; encrypted communication channels for trusted coordination between organizations; and bilateral agreements between counterpart organizations in different countries.
"Our members and partners in Malaysia have long supported Indonesian migrant workers, [and] our bilateral agreement with PERTIMIG [a domestic workers organization in Malaysia] strengthens that network, ensuring migrant domestic workers are connected to trusted support across borders. That is what meaningful cross-border protection looks like," said Dina Nuriyati, Serikat Buruh Migran Indonesia (SBMI).
The PROTECT project will continue to support civil society organizations across the region, helping strengthen cross-border protection systems and ensuring the voices and experiences of women migrant workers and children continue to inform regional efforts to prevent trafficking, exploitation and violence.
