On World Health Day 2025 , the United Nations Network on Migration (UNNM), with the World Health Organization (WHO) as a member of its Executive Committee, reaffirms its commitment to ensuring that every pregnant migrant woman, mother and newborn has access to essential health care, regardless of migration status. This priority aligns with the WHO global action plan on promoting the health of refugees and migrants and is upheld in the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration.
In its newly released statement , UNNM, together with WHO and its partner organizations, issues a call to action to urgently remove barriers that prevent migrant women and newborns from accessing essential prenatal and postnatal care.
United Nations Network on Migration statement on World Health Day 2025
The first years of life, from birth to a child's second birthday, are critical for long-term health and development. Access to quality prenatal and postnatal care is essential to ensure safe pregnancies, healthy births and strong early growth. Yet, for too many pregnant migrant women, mothers and newborns, this crucial period is marked by barriers to care, lack of legal identity and heightened health risks, often putting their lives in danger. In some contexts, migration disrupts the continuity of care, leaving women without access to maternal and newborn health services.
On this World Health Day, the United Nations Network on Migration reaffirms the commitment upheld in the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) to ensuring every pregnant migrant woman, mother and newborn receives adequate health care, regardless of migratory status.
Migrant women, particularly those in transit or with irregular status, face heightened risks of pregnancy-related complications or unwanted pregnancies, sometimes due to sexual violence. Some may give birth in immigration centres without adequate prenatal and postnatal care, or in settings where health care is fragmented or unavailable. Fear of detention or deportation can also prevent undocumented women from seeking medical attention, including in cases of sexual violence requiring emergency services, further endangering their lives and those of their newborns.
No woman should be forced to choose between her safety and her right to health care. A mother and child's survival, health and legal identity should not depend on migration status. While migrant women and children are not inherently less healthy than host populations, they face systemic barriers – legal, financial, linguistic and social – that restrict access to essential health care. Xenophobic narratives and exclusionary policies further marginalize them, limiting access to timely, quality maternal and newborn health care. Without inclusive policies and responsive health systems, these disparities will continue to endanger lives and fuel cycles of inequality for generations.
The United Nations Network on Migration calls on Member States to build inclusive health systems that guarantee uninterrupted maternal and newborn care along migration routes by:
- ensuring birth registration for all children, enabling access to essential services;
- guaranteeing universal access to adequate emergency sexual and reproductive health services, as well as maternal and newborn health care, regardless of migratory status;
- integrating maternal and newborn health care into migration policies, ensuring that services are available at all stages of the migration journey;
- ensuring equal rights for women to confer their nationality to their children;
- strengthening culturally and linguistically inclusive maternal and newborn care;
- investing in gender-responsive and age-sensitive data and research to generate evidence-based, migrant-sensitive health policies;
- enhancing regional cooperation and cross-border health agreements and leveraging digital health tools, to ensure continuity of care; and
- leveraging global forums such as the Commission on Population and Development to align migration policies with health commitments under SDG 3.
The first WHO World Report on the Health of Refugees and Migrants has provided critical evidence on the systemic barriers faced by migrant populations. Advancing maternal and newborn health is not just a human right and humanitarian imperative – it is also a fundamental commitment to public health and sustainable development and a shared responsibility. The GCM, alongside the WHO Global Action Plan on Promoting the Health of Refugees and Migrants , calls for inclusive health systems that promote the rights of all, including women and children, regardless of migratory status.
Every pregnant woman, mother and newborn deserves a healthy life, without exception. Migrants are not merely recipients of health care; they are frontline workers, caregivers and key contributors to resilient health systems and community well-being. Ensuring their access to maternal and newborn care strengthens societies, reduces public health costs and fosters more inclusive, sustainable communities.
