Stand Up for Migrants

2019: Seven Key Elements on Building Human Rights-Based Narratives on Migrants and Migration

Pervasive and fear-driven anti-migration narratives have flourished in recent years, offering up migrants as the scapegoats for deep-rooted societal problems related to the economy or security, and often actively promoted by those who employ these narratives for political, financial or other gain. Discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, hate speech and hate crime which result from such narratives have a severe impact on the human rights of migrants. UN Human Rights has developed a set of seven key elements to building human rights-based migration narratives in order to respond to the urgent need to reframe narratives and public messaging on migration and migrants to uphold and promote the human rights of all migrants. This toolkit is intended for broad use; including by organizations and institutions that work to promote the human rights of migrants, by migrants’ human rights defenders, advocacy and service organizations working with migrants, public interest lawyers, and migrants themselves.