Governments and NGOs vow to protect migrant workers
Governments and NGOs vow to protect migrant workers
Kanis Dursin, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Upset by the rampant abuse against migrant workers, particularly
female laborers, governments and non-governmental organizations
from Asian and Middle East countries vowed on Thursday to join
hands in campaigns aimed at protecting the migrant workers.
"We agree to promote multistakeholder collaboration within and
between countries of origin and destination, including bilateral
and multilateral agreements to protect migrant workers," they
said in a statement issued at the end of a three-day regional
conference here.
The conference, called Protecting Women Migrant Workers in
Asia: Meeting the Challenges, was organized by the Manpower and
Transmigration Ministry and the United Nations Development Fund
for Women (UNIFEM) to enhance commitment to protect the rights of
women migrant workers.
Government officials and non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
attending the conference came from the Philippines, Hong Kong,
Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bahrain, Jordan and Indonesia.
According to the latest data issued by the International Labor
Organization (ILO), over 20 million Asians were working outside
of their own countries, mostly in Middle East countries,
generating some US$80 billion in remittance in 2002, up from $60
billion in 1998.
Despite their growing roles in the economies of both sending
and receiving countries, migrant workers, especially females, are
often subjected to abuse and discrimination in both their
countries of origin and employment.
According to Jen D'Cunha, UNIFEM's Regional Program Manager,
female migrant workers were prone to various kinds of abuse and
discrimination including extortion, sexual harassment and
domestic violence as well as racial discrimination.
Conference participants also agreed to gear their efforts
toward ensuring a balance between recognizing and protecting
migrant workers to prevent rights violations and providing
mechanisms and services for redress and recovery from abuse.
"We agree to place migration on national and regional as well
as international agendas," they said.
They acknowledged, however, that migrant worker issues were a
multi-stakeholder concern that require equally multilateral
responses involving sending and receiving countries,
international organizations and NGOs.
They called on countries sending and receiving migrant workers
to ratify international human rights pacts and forge and
implement multilateral cooperation on minimum work standards and
welfare services, as well as the exchange of information on
undocumented migrant workers.
"We need to convene inter-ministerial meetings between
countries of origin and employment on the provision of
protections to migrant workers, including women," they said.
According to the participants, while some countries have put
in place legislation favorable to migrant workers, others are
still struggling to draft regulations on rights protection.
"We encourage countries of employment to share and adopt good
practices in the protection and empowerment of women migrant
workers," they said.
Non-governmental organizations attending the conference,
meanwhile, pledged to undertake targeted capacity building on
gender and rights in migration for various stakeholders,
including policymakers, service providers, recruiting agencies,
employees and migrant workers themselves and to monitor the
implementation of human rights standards on migrant women workers
and document rights violations.