On 18 December 2025, the global community observes International Migrants Day, at a time when human mobility has become a defining feature of globalisation, development, and social change. 

About International Migrants Day 2025 and the Contemporary Migration Landscape

• Foundation and Observance: International Migrants Day is observed annually on 18 December, following its proclamation by the United Nations General Assembly in 2000, to mark the 1990 International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.
• Theme and Narrative Shift (2025): “My Great Story: Cultures and Development” 
  • It seeks to transform the global discourse by moving beyond viewing migrants as mere labour units, and instead recognising them as rights-bearing individuals, agents of cultural exchange, and contributors to inclusive development.
• Economic and Social Significance of Migration: Migration today is a critical driver of global development, enabling the transfer of skills, capital, and knowledge, while fostering social resilience and cultural diversity in destination societies.

About Migrants

• Definition: A migrant is any person who moves away from their habitual place of residence, either within a country or across international borders. 
  • The International Organization for Migration (IOM) adopts a broad definition that is neutral to legal status and covers voluntary and forced movement.
• Scope of Movement and Duration: Migration includes internal and international mobility. 
  • The United Nations further classifies a long-term migrant as one who resides in another country for at least 12 months, highlighting the temporal dimension of migration.
• Typology of Migrants: Migrants form an umbrella category comprising labour migrants, students, family migrants, and those displaced by conflict or disasters. 
  • Nearly two-thirds of international migrants are labour migrants, reflecting global demographic and workforce transitions.
• Forced and Climate-Induced Migration: Contemporary migration frameworks increasingly recognise displacement due to conflict, natural disasters, and climate stress. 
  • While such persons may be legally classified as Refugees or Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), they remain central to the global migration challenge, with 123 million forcibly displaced persons worldwide by 2024.
• Legal Status Neutrality: Migration is defined independent of documentation. 
  • Both regular and irregular migrants fall within its ambit, underscoring the need for rights-based rather than status-based governance.
• Demographic Profile and India’s Position: Migrants are predominantly of working age (20–64 years). 

Status of Migration

• Scale and Geopolitical Salience: With international migrants reaching 304 million globally, migration has become a defining pillar of global geopolitics and economic resilience. 
  • Migrants now constitute nearly 3.7% of the world’s population, reflecting a sustained upward trajectory.
• India’s Central Position in Global Migration: India remains the world’s largest country of origin, with around 18.5 million citizens living abroad as of 2025 and nearly 38% of its population engaged in internal migration.
  • As of 2025, the United States (5.7 million), United Arab Emirates (3.9 million), and Canada (3.6 million) remain the top destinations for Indian migrants, followed closely by Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom.
  • It is also the largest recipient of remittances, estimated at ~$135 billion (FY25), providing a crucial buffer against the Current Account Deficit (CAD).
  • Scale of Inter-State Migration in India: The 2011 Census recorded over 41 million inter-state migrants, underscoring the scale of internal mobility.

Drivers of Migration (Integrated Push–Pull Framework)

Migration is rarely caused by a single factor. It results from an interaction between Push factors that compel people to leave and Pull factors that attract them to destination regions.

• Economic Drivers (Search for Prosperity): Income inequality, unemployment, and low wages push migration, while higher earnings and labour shortages pull workers toward destination economies, especially in healthcare, construction, and technology.
  • Example: Nearly two-thirds of international migrants are labour migrants (IOM World Migration Report 2024). 
  • Rural Push: According to the 2020-21 Migration report, the overall migration rate is 28.9%, with 26.5% from rural areas. Around 10.8% migrate mainly for employment.
• Environmental and Climate Drivers: Climate change, natural disasters, sea-level rise, and resource degradation increasingly force people to leave unviable regions, particularly coastal and agrarian zones.
• • Example: The World Bank Groundswell Report projects 216 million internal climate migrants by 2050. 
  • In India, regions such as the Sundarbans and Bundelkhand show rising climate-induced displacement.
• Political and Security Drivers: Armed conflict, political instability, human rights violations, and persecution act as strong push factors, forcing people to migrate as refugees or asylum seekers.
• • Example: UNHCR reported 123.2 million forcibly displaced persons globally by end-2024, the highest ever recorded.
• Social and Demographic Drivers: Migration is driven by family reunification, education, healthcare access, and aspirations for social mobility. Demographic imbalances between ageing societies and youthful economies create structural labour demand.
• • Example: By 2030, over 25% of Europe’s population will be aged 65+, while India’s median age is ~28 years. Over 1.3 million Indian students were studying abroad in 2024.
• Technological and Digital Drivers: Digital connectivity, remote work, and migrant networks reduce information and mobility costs, enabling new forms of migration such as digital nomadism and skilled mobility.
• • Example: Several countries now offer digital nomad visas, while online recruitment platforms and diaspora networks increasingly shape migration flows.

Challenges and Vulnerabilities Arising from Migration

• Gendered Exploitation and Care-Sector Risks: Migrant women face disproportionate risks of domestic servitude, exploitation, and wage theft, especially in informal care and household sectors.
  • The UN Women (2025) notes that 87% of domestic servitude victims are women and girls, reflecting weak labour and legal protection.
• High Recruitment Costs and Informal Intermediaries: Despite a statutory ceiling under the Emigration Act, 1983, migrant workers often pay four to five times the permitted recruitment cost due to unregulated sub-agent networks, leading to debt bondage, poor documentation, and limited grievance redressal.
• Digital and Organised Forms of Exploitation: Digital recruitment scams, including WhatsApp-based fraud, have created new forms of modern slavery, luring migrants into cyber-crime hubs in regions like Southeast Asia, beyond the reach of traditional labour laws.
• Skill Mismatch and Deskilling: The absence of a migration-cycle approach to skills—covering pre-departure training, skill utilisation abroad, and post-return reintegration—results in deskilling and under-recognition of migrants’ overseas experience.
• Political, Civic, and Legal Exclusion: High mobility causes structural disenfranchisement of internal migrants due to residence-linked voting systems; limited rollout of Remote Voting Machine (RVM) pilots leaves millions politically invisible, while climate migrants remain outside formal protection under international refugee law.
• Urban Informality and Planning Deficits: Migrants sustain India’s informal urban economy, yet the lack of migration-sensitive urban planning excludes them from housing, basic services, and social security.
  • NITI Aayog identifies this as a governance failure rather than a capacity issue.
• Data, Surveillance, and Governance Gaps: Migration governance suffers from outdated data—reliant on Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2020–21 and Multiple Indicator Survey 2020–21—while mandatory digital platforms, combined with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, raise concerns over surveillance, consent, and accountability.

Migration Governance- International Frameworks and India’s Policy Response

• International Legal and Institutional Frameworks:
  • Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM), 2018: A non-binding intergovernmental framework promoting rights-based, cooperative migration governance. 
    • India actively participates in the International Migration Review Forum (IMRF), advocating safe mobility while preserving national policy space.

• • International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers (1990): Establishes minimum standards for migrant worker rights, including equality of treatment and protection from exploitation. Despite limited ratification globally, it remains a normative reference point for migrant rights advocacy.
    • India has neither signed nor ratified this convention.
  • WHO Global Action Plan on Health of Refugees and Migrants (2023–2030): Seeks inclusion of migrants in Universal Health Coverage (UHC), with emphasis on primary healthcare, mental health, maternal care, and health system resilience.
  • UNHCR Protection Frameworks: While focused on refugees, UNHCR operational guidelines influence humanitarian protection of displaced populations, including in non-signatory states like India, through executive and judicial mechanisms.
  • International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions: Conventions such as C97 (Migration for Employment) and C143 (Migrant Workers) promote fair recruitment, equal wages, and decent work, shaping global labour mobility norms.
• India’s Policy and Institutional Response:
  • Legal and Institutional Reform: The Overseas Mobility (Facilitation and Welfare) Bill, 2025 replaces the Emigration Act, 1983, marking a shift from control-centric regulation to facilitation and welfare-based governance. 
    • It proposes an Overseas Mobility and Welfare Council, sector-specific mobility frameworks, and digital oversight, though gaps remain in worker grievance redressal and recruiter accountability.
  • Bilateral and International Protection: India has signed bilateral labour agreements and Social Security Agreements (SSAs) with several countries. 
    • These aim to protect wages, working conditions, and social security rights of Indian migrant workers abroad.
  • Digital Migration Governance: Platforms such as e-Migrate 2.0, managed by the Ministry of External Affairs, automate emigration clearances and regulate recruitment agents. 
    • They also monitor the welfare of blue-collar overseas workers, improving transparency but raising data protection concerns.
  • Welfare Portability for Internal Migrants: The eShram Portal (2021) and eShram One-Stop Solution (2024) have created an integrated National Database of Unorganised Workers. 
    • Alongside this, One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) ensures nationwide food security portability for over 80 crore internal migrants.
  • Crisis Response and Diaspora Protection: The Vande Bharat Mission demonstrated India’s capacity for large-scale evacuation and diaspora protection during the COVID-19 crisis. It set a benchmark for state responsibility toward citizens abroad.
  • Insurance and Sub-National Innovation: The Pravasi Bharatiya Bima Yojana (PBBY) provides mandatory insurance coverage to low-skilled overseas workers. 
    • State initiatives such as Kerala’s NORKA and Odisha’s migrant welfare boards highlight federal innovation in migration governance.
• Together, these initiatives indicate a gradual shift from ad-hoc migration management to institutionalised and rights-aware governance, though gaps persist in legal certainty, portability of rights, and enforcement.

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Way Forward

• Shift to Rights-Based Migration Governance: Reorient migration policy from control to rights, dignity, and access to justice, including legal aid and grievance redressal for migrants.
• Reform Legal and Recruitment Frameworks: Amend the Overseas Mobility (Facilitation and Welfare) Bill, 2025 to ensure worker-led remedies, enforce recruiter accountability, and adopt the Employer-Pays recruitment model to end debt bondage.
• Ensure Portability of Rights and Political Inclusion: Extend portability beyond food security to healthcare, social security, education, and voting rights, including scaling up remote voting mechanisms for internal migrants.
• Strengthen Inter-State and Urban Migration Governance: Establish a statutory Inter-State Migration Council and promote migration-sensitive urban planning, as recommended by NITI Aayog, to align fiscal and welfare responsibilities.
• Recognise and Prepare for Climate-Induced Mobility: Develop a national framework for climate migration, integrating early-warning systems, livelihood transitions, and principles of the Global Compact for Migration (GCM).
• Promote Skill, Education, and Labour Market Portability: Enable international recognition of skills, upgrade ITIs, and ensure educational continuity for migrant children through national portability mechanisms.
• Use Technology with Strong Safeguards: Leverage platforms like e-Migrate 2.0 for transparency and welfare, while enforcing data protection, consent, and accountability under the DPDP Act, 2023.

Conclusion

Migration is not a crisis to be “managed” but a human journey to be governed with dignity. To honor the Indian ethos of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (The World is One Family), our policies must transition from mere labor facilitation to the fortification of human rights. By protecting the “Great Story” of every migrant, we ensure that global development remains truly inclusive and resilient.

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