CERD and the Rights of Migrant Farmworkers
As the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD Committee) reviewed U.S. compliance this week, a group of human rights and poverty law organizations working with migrant farmworkers in the U.S. were waiting with bated breath. They submitted a shadow report to the CERD Committee on the practice of denying outreach workers access to the farms and ranches where migrant farmworkers live and work in the U.S. In the shadow report, they argue that the U.S. violates its obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, especially articles 5 and 6, protecting the right to seek protection from and effective remedies against racism. This group is hoping that the CERD Committee will make a recommendation specifically addressing this issue in its concluding observations following the U.S. review.
While no official data is available, it is estimated that between 1 and 3 million year-round and seasonal migrant farmworkers labor every year on U.S. farms and ranches. About 89% of farmworkers are racial minorities (Hispanic and African American) and approximately 21% of farmworkers live in employer-owned housing.
The issue of migrant camp access issue is a huge one for outreach workers who attempt to provide migrant farmworkers living on labor camps or ranches in the U.S. with legal assistance, health care, education, and social and other basic services. The U.S. does not have a comprehensive federal legal framework concerning the right of migrant farmworkers to receive visits and information from outreach workers on agricultural labor camps and each state differs in its enforcement of its own laws. Outreach workers are regularly and illegally denied access. What is more, outreach workers regularly face harassment, threats of arrest, and even violence by owners and operators of migrant labor camps with no recourse. Just a couple of weeks ago an outreach worker in North Carolina was nearly arrested for meeting with farmworkers at a labor camp, in blatant disregard of North Carolina law.
The effects of these abuses are manifold and include service providers being discouraged from providing services and advocates having a difficult time identifying and providing services to victims of labor abuses, sexual violence, and human trafficking. The totality of these factors gives farm owners and ranchers a free pass to exploit and discriminate against this extremely vulnerable population of migrant farmworkers.
The shadow report submitted earlier this year is not the only time this issue of migrant camp access has been or will be brought to the international human rights arena. Erin Foley Smith, Project Attorney with the Human Rights in the U.S. Project at the Human Rights Institute at Columbia Law School, which also signed on to the migrant camp access shadow report, is currently in Geneva and has been advocating directly with CERD Committee members on this issue during the review. This issue of migrant camp access was previously raised before the U.N. Human Rights Committee in a shadow report last year, and the committee made some recommendations to the U.S. regarding human rights and migrants, but none specifically regarding the camp access issue. A complaint was submitted to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights on this issue in December 2012. The Transnational Legal Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania Law School has submitted a thematic hearing request to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on this issue and also produced a short video on this issue for international human rights advocacy purposes.
The group of human rights and poverty law organizations waiting this week are confident that their persistent efforts on the international level will pay off and that the CERD committee will recognize the importance of this human rights issue. International recognition of the migrant camp access issue could go a long way in terms of U.S.-based advocacy on behalf of migrant farmworkers’ rights. U.S. migrant farmworker advocates hope to use a concluding observation on migrant camp access to press government officials, and U.S. courts, for a comprehensive legal framework, better enforcement of current laws, and greater education of the public and law enforcement about the rights of migrant farmworkers.