Saleem Samad – AHN News Correspondent
Dhaka, Bangladesh (AHN) – After a five-year hiatus, a revived regional dialogue on human rights of migrant workers worldwide resumed in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka on Tuesday.
Ministers from Asian labor-sending countries are holding three days of business about endorsing protections for migrant workers, Human Rights Watch, Migrant Forum in Asia, and CARAM Asia said in a briefing paper. The protect should give priority to protecting migrant domestic workers, who are at especially high risk of abuse, and to ending recruitment-related exploitation, the organizations said.
The gathering marks the fourth round of the “Colombo Process,” a series of regional consultative meetings on Asian contractual migrant workers. Under the theme “Migration with Dignity,” delegates from 11 Asian countries that send large numbers of workers abroad are discussing strategies to improve coordination, optimize benefits from migration, and prevent worker abuses at home and abroad.
Several labor-receiving countries from Asia and the Middle East will attend as observers.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Tuesday underscored the need for establishing an international regimen to administer cross-border migration and internal displacements, the outcomes of adversities caused by climate change.
“We need an international regime under the United Nations as our country is likely to have huge human displacements due to climate change,” she said.
Some 3 million Asian men and women migrate each year, a large proportion working in domestic service, construction, manufacturing, and agriculture in other Asian countries and the Gulf states. In 2010, Asian migrants sent home an estimated US$175 billion in remittances.
Gulf countries in particular rely heavily on Asian contract labor; for example, there is approximately one migrant domestic worker for every two Kuwaiti citizens. Migrants from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka have fueled construction booms in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.
“Abuses against migrants are often linked to gaps in information, poor coordination, and competition for jobs, so it’s a big deal for these governments to sit around the table and address these problems together,” said Nisha Varia, senior women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Dhaka meeting is also a chance to share information about successful reforms with other countries in the region.”
The briefing paper “Protecting Asian Migrants’ Rights” prepared by New York based Human Rights Watch, urged delegates to pledge support for a proposed international convention on labor standards for domestic work, increase civil society participation in future regional dialogues, promote increased multilateral cooperation, and take measures to eliminate recruitment fees charged to migrant workers.
But inadequate protections mean migrants also risk an array of abuses, the groups said, including recruitment-related deception and debts, unpaid wages, hazardous working conditions, physical and sexual abuse, and forced labor, including human trafficking. Unlicensed recruiters often operate with impunity, migrants have limited information about their rights and channels to seek help, and immigration policies can trap workers with abusive employers.
“When high, and often inflated, recruitment fees leave migrants heavily indebted, they are especially vulnerable to abuse,” said Dr. Chowdhury Abrar, chairman of the international relations department at the University of Dhaka. “Cracking down on excessive fees and unethical recruitment practices will be a key ingredient to any reform.”
“Even though migrants from Asia confront similar abuses while working abroad, their governments have typically addressed these bilaterally, and the results have been far weaker protections than if they negotiated together,” said Mohammad Harun Al Rashid, regional coordinator for CARAM Asia.
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