In our countries there exists a category of workers whom the Covid-19 crisis brought to light since they are socioeconomically more fragile than others: this is the category of undocumented workers, of workers deprived from rights. These workers have confronted a double sanction: a high socioeconomic precarity and a haphazard access to health care.
We often find this category of workers in domestic work (housekeepers, babysitters, nursemaids) or in the foodservice and agricultural sectors, or even in sex work.
These workers already constituted the most fragile category of workers in normal times. In this sanitary crisis we are facing today, their fragility has even deepened. On the one hand, their precarity has increased: they have found themselves dismissed and jobless with no salary or State aid. On the other hand, the access to health care or to all other kind of State allowances is even more complicated and this entails sanitary consequences for these people as well as for the whole of society since legal papers do not stop the transmission of the virus.
Each country has reacted in a different manner during the last months to bring health and even survival responses to those workers who have been inhabiting with no right on its soil for a number of years.
In this time of Covid-19, this issue is essential not only for this category of vulnerable workers but also for the whole of society.
In the light of the European Social Charter, the Parliamentary Assembly should accordingly examine the link between the legal status of these vulnerable workers and the consequences that this entails for them on accessing to health care, lifesaving aid accommodation, or to justice in an effort to identify recommendations that help improve their social and sanitary protection.