Beyond GCM for Actual Changes on the Ground

Regional Workshop on GCM Indicators by Migrants

APMM and Caram Asia successfully held an online regional workshop last September 22, 2025. Attended by partners of APMM and members of CARAM Asia, the workshop successfully introduced the GCM Indicators by Migrants and Refugees and identified the opportunities of using the migrants-led tool to advance migrants’ rights. 

Rey Asis of APMM highlighted the GCM, its processes, and relevance to migrants. He also introduced the GCM Indicators by migrants and refugees. Asis emphasized that the indicator is a living document that can be further developed with more inputs from other organizations and networks. “The indicator belongs to all migrants, refugees, organizations and networks taking part in the process of crafting it and supporting it”, he stated. 

Musarrat Perveen of CARAM Asia presented the issues faced by migrants in accessing health services migration —climateof CARAM Asia in advocating migrants’ rights to health. Aside from that, Perveen also highlighted the importance of using the GCM Indicators by Migrants and Refugees in the advocacy work of CARAM Asia. She said that “the indicators strengthen advocacy for migrant-centered solutions and participatory decision-making at all levels.”

Migrants across Asia continue to face mandatory testing of pregnancy and health, expensive medical fees, exclusion from health systems, and the constant threat of arrest due to their health condition. For those living with HIV, discrimination and systemic exclusion remain widespread.

Issues related to migrants' access to health are linked to discriminatory health policies and practices, and it becomes more challenging with issues like the  status of migrants, recruitment and deployment process, rights to organize, access to justice, policies on migration, and so on. 

Yet health was only one part of the picture. Participants also spoke of the broader forces driving migration—climate change, economic inequality, and labor exploitation. 

Some of the efforts in advocating for migrants' rights were also shared by participants. From building movements to engaging in advocacy spaces. The work varies from capacity building of grassroots migrants, organizing, researching and monitoring, advocacy and engaging governments and related UN Agencies, maximizing advocacy spaces such as ASEAN Forum on Migrant Labour (AFML), and building networks and alliances, among others. 

Participants of the workshop also recommend some advocacy work that can be done by using the GCM Indicators for Migrants and Refugees. The indicators need to be introduced to governments and related UN Agencies for them to use it for the implementation of GCM. The indicators also need to be introduced to grassroots migrants, to build their capacity and increase their campaigns at national, regional, and international levels. 

Aside from that, migrants and CSOs can use the indicators in monitoring and developing reports that can be used in any advocacy spaces, not limited to GCM processes, but also in other spaces that are more binding, such as Universal Periodic Report (UPR), CEDAW, among others. 

The workshop closed with the note “Together, more work must be done in the future, for real changes to happen on the ground”.