Social Protection Legal Systems Studies For Foreign Workers In ASEAN

Since ASEAN (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations) was formed on8August1967, economy in ASEAN has developed in an imbalance way. The huge gap of wages and employment opportunities between member states leads to an inevitable trend of labour migration within ASEAN. The majority of current labour flow in ASEAN are low skilled workers with basic education working in planting, construction, domestic service and other primary sectors. While foreign workers filling vacancies in the local job market and creating economic prosperity, the social security policies and regulations of the member states are not synchronized. It results in the gap of social protection for foreign workers in those countries.ASEAN keep focusing on management and supervision of foreign workers, but problems of illegal immigrants, low-skilled workers and temporary labour still exist. Legal and policy barriers hinder some foreign workers to social protection. Social protection systems are generally open to local citizens or permanent residents of the destination country only. It prohibits temporary and undocumented foreign workers from applying. Most foreign domestic workers are foreign women from poor countries. Due to difficulties of working visa and proof collecting, foreign domestic workers are the most vulnerable groups to human rights violations. Freedom of association of foreign workers are limited to some extent. They have little access to assistance from NGO or labour organizations.Social protection for foreign workers have a profound impact on the goal of ASEAN integration. The ILO and the EU have mature experience in social protection of foreign workers, especially social welfare portability. These experiences is also quite meaningful for China. To achieve the long-term goal of integration, ASEAN needs a long-run strategic policy to protect foreign workers, establish a regional cooperative framework, and take in the mature experience from EU.The main framework of this paper is divided into five chapters. Chapter one is introduction, including study purpose, significance, research methods and literature review. The second chapter analyses the status of ASEAN labour social security, including the reasons for free movement of foreign workers and the source of labour. This chapter also covers main policies and regulations of ASEAN in regional, national and governmental levels for foreign workers with analyse the reasons of problems. The third chapter is the comparative analysis of country cases, including social protection policy analysis and legal evaluation of Singapore and Malaysia. Chapter Four is social protection legal evaluation, including the review of regulations and policies, the impact of labour migration on ASEAN integration process and international legal experiences on social protection. The fifth and last chapter is the conclusion and recommendations. This chapter summarizes the entire paper, and gives comments and suggestions.