Asia should address labor migration
Kim Hak-Su, The Nation, Asia News Network/Bangkok
As international migration always involves at least two countries, the limited number and scope of bilateral agreements, and complete lack of a regional framework for dealing with it, points to an obvious shortcoming on the part of the international community.
The reluctance of many governments in Asia and the Pacific to commit to international arrangements concerning migration may stem partially from the view that labor migration is a temporary phenomenon that will decrease in importance with structural changes in their economies. In fact, all indications are that migration within the region will continue to increase, reflecting growing disparities in levels of economic development.
Asian countries now regularly deploy over two million migrant workers per year, while an unknown number of workers migrate outside of government programs. Economies in East and Southeast Asia currently host more than four million migrant workers in a regular status and several hundred thousand unauthorized migrants and workers. Women constitute a significant share of the volume of regional migration and the number of women exceeds the number of men officially deployed as migrant workers by Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.
The recruitment and placement of migrant workers has become a large industry in many countries and remittances from nationals overseas earn billions of dollars in foreign exchange for several countries. The annual sum of remittances exceeds US$10 billion in India, $6 billion in the Philippines and $1.5 billion in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Thailand. These totals are often greater than levels of official development assistance or foreign direct investment received by countries.
International migration should not be viewed solely as an economic phenomenon, however. The large numbers of persons migrating or working without authorization usually have no provision for health care and, if concentrated in particular areas, can impose a burden on local health facilities. Even when migration is authorized, it causes separation of family members for long periods. In some instances, children accompany migrants or are born to them while abroad. Such children of migrants often receive inadequate health care and schooling. Those born in the country of destination sometimes face obstacles to acquiring a nationality, which is a basic right provided in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Given the importance of international migration to every country in the region, governments need to develop comprehensive migration policies to include refugee movements, legal migration, irregular migration and trafficking. These policies should be integrated into broader strategies of rights-based economic and social development.
Countries in the region have been able to agree on approaches to combating trafficking in persons. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation adopted a Convention on Preventing and Combating the Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution in 2002. Six governments signed a memorandum of understanding on fighting trafficking in 2004 under the aegis of the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative against Trafficking (COMMIT). Thirty-eight countries participate in the Bali Process, initiated in 2002 by the Bali Ministerial Conference on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime.
It is now time for countries in the region to cooperate with one another and with their development partners in the international community, including the United Nations and other intergovernmental bodies, to go beyond agreements on trafficking in persons to cooperation on all forms of migration but especially labor migration. Such agreements should cover the rights and obligations of employers and migrant workers. The most effective way to prevent trafficking is to provide legal channels for migration and employment that meets national standards.
In an effort to promote the regional dialogue on international migration issues, UNESCAP and other international organizations are convening the Regional Seminar on the Social Implications of International Migration, to be held in Bangkok from Aug. 24 to 26, 2005. It is our hope that the Regional Seminar will contribute to the process of building a sustainable and mutually beneficial migration regime in the region that will make migration a force for long-term growth and development.
Kim Hak-Su is executive secretary of the Bangkok-based United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.