Better recruitment practices, curbing human smuggling and trafficking and better management of migrant workers and their concerns emerged at a regional discussion in Colombo on migrant workers this week. The Colombo discussion was organised by the Solidarity Centre in collaboration with Migrant Forum in Asia and dealt with the theme “Recruitment Practices: Interconnection between Recruitment, Labour [...]

The Sunday Times Sri Lanka

Recruitment patterns, human trafficking come under scrutiny at Colombo discussion on migrant workers

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Better recruitment practices, curbing human smuggling and trafficking and better management of migrant workers and their concerns emerged at a regional discussion in Colombo on migrant workers this week. The Colombo discussion was organised by the Solidarity Centre in collaboration with Migrant Forum in Asia and dealt with the theme “Recruitment Practices: Interconnection between Recruitment, Labour Migration and Human Trafficking”.

Government representatives from Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, India and Sri Lanka as well as the Philippines and United Arab Emirates and civil society and trade union stakeholders working in the area of labour migration took part in the consultation.Participants shared information on the role and mandate of their institutions, issues in recruitment practices in their respective countries, legislation and regulatory mechanism regarding labour migration, and the ongoing engagement of their institutions pertaining to improving recruitment practices.

On day one of the conference, the Indian Government representative – Christopher Philip Smith Nonghulo from the Ministry of Home Affairs, speaking at a session where country perspectives were presented, said that India has a separate ministry to deal with migrant workers.

India pursues a proactive policy to empower migrants and has many MOUs with Gulf countries. An Indian community welfare fund exists in 43 countries where expatriate workers can seek relief and compensation from workplace issues. Ramila Bhandari from Nepal’s Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs said 13 per cent of migrants are women while 56 per cent of the total households in the country depend on remittances.

She said there are four safe houses in labour receiving countries. The country’s Foreign Employment Act was amended in 2008 to create Foreign Employment Promotions Board. Nepal has dispatched female labour attaches in its missions abroad if the number of female workers in that country number over 1,000. The age barrier for recruitment is 24 years.

From the Sri Lankan standpoint, the government representative, Cheka Premasiri, Deputy General Manager, SLBFE said a standard job contract is for two years with provision to extend it through the embassy abroad without workers having to return home at the end of their contract.

She noted that women seeking overseas domestic work are restricted by age. In Saudi, women at 25 years or above can work as domestic aides while in other countries it ranges from 21 to 23 years. Females with children 5 years and below are not permitted to travel abroad for domestic work unless they provide adequate proof of a support system for the children with financial capacity.

The Maldives view took into account the fact that the country is a labour receiving country with some 110,000 documented workers and another 35,000 illegal workers. Some 60 per cent of the workers come from Bangladesh and the rest from India and Pakistan. “We are tackling human trafficking issues with stricter laws,” said Mohamed Shifan, Deputy Chief Immigration Officer from the Maldives.

He said currently a study by the ILO is underway on labour demand and for the first time migration is being considered as part of the development process. In another session examining exploitation issues, researcher Prof. Milan Darrel from Nepal said zero fees (worker not being asked to pay to get a job) should prevail as the foreign employer pays a fee to the agent to hire a worker. So why should a worker pay a service fee which has already been paid, he asked.

Riza Ibrahim from Transparency Maldives (TM) said most of the cheap, low skilled labour came from Bangladesh as Sri Lankan workers were too expensive and offered worker options at a higher level in the unskilled and skilled ladder.

Thus Sri Lankan workers had fewer problems. He said workers are exploited and pointed out that one way was when companies hiring workers got more job approvals from government authorities than requested for. He cited one case where a company had asked for 90 workers but got an additional 154 approvals. “So they recruit more at cheap rates and that’s where the exploitation starts,” he said.

Mr. Ibrahim agreed that governments present and past had genuinely tried to stop trafficking but powerful, large companies involved in recruitment often called the shots. He said most workers got little support from their embassies in Male (the capital) and thus these workers had to find their own protection mechanisms. “Since we provide legal services, workers come to us,” he said adding that other than TM there is no legal support system for foreign workers.

In the discussion on regulating the recruitment process in South Asia, participants were explained by Indian academic and researcher Sheeta Sharma of India’s e-migrate system where labour visas is streamlined to the point that it can obtained online.

Padmini Ratnayake, a consultant at the Ministry of Foreign Employment, referred to the 2013 Code of Ethical Conduct for licensed foreign employment agencies and said while it is not mandatory, some provisions are covered by existing laws.

She said such a code gives a human face to recruitment agencies, encourages good business practices, ensures ethical conduct and professional services, protects ensures the welfare for workers; ensures obligations of clients, and provides for transparency in services and professionalism of agencies. She said Sri Lanka is drafting an Employment Migration Authority Act to govern all forms of migration – internally and externally.

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