Illegal Labour Migrants and Access to Social Protection

Abstract

This article looks at the possibilities and limitations of providing illegal labour migrants with access to social protection benefits. First of all we define the main components of the group of persons we are interested in as: ‘non-nationals who are working in a country without being allowed to stay in the country and/or without being allowed to work in the country’. We do not discuss all possible categories of illegal migrants. We then develop the discussion around three issues. We look first of all at the major international social security instruments to see what they tell us about illegal labour migrants. We then examine some national approaches, which provide illustrations of access to social protection in three fields: access to health care, social assistance and (work-related) social protection. Finally, we develop some general ideas on these matters and try to come up with some possible approaches. One of the outcomes of the article is that, in the quest for guaranteeing proper access to social protection, it is sometimes helpful (e.g. for social insurances) to compare the situation of the illegal labour migrant with that of nationals working in the ‘informal economy’. The eventual protection that is guaranteed will depend heavily upon the category to which the (illegal labour) migrant belongs. Hence, more effort should go into a further classification of illegal (labour) migrants and into the development of their corresponding social rights.