By Helen Shok Jok. Nairobi, Kenya
African Trade Unions have rose from their three-day workshop in Nairobi Kenya, with a resolve to block all the loopholes associated with unethical recruitment in labour migration.
The workshop was to building the capacity of the Focal Persons of the Africa Trade Union Migration Network ATUMNET, on fair recruitment.
Apart from the Trade Unions participants, employers, recruiter, returnee migrant workers and the media also benefitted from the training.
Put together by the Central Organisation of Trade Unions Kenya in collaboration with the International Trade Union Confederation ITUC-Africa and the International Labour Organisation ILO, the training exposed the depth and dangers caused by unethical recruitment of labour migrants especially from the African continent.
For the International Labour Organisation, it has produced a document titled “General Principles and Operational Guidelines and Practices on Fair Recruitment”, and believes that if all actors should abide by the stipulated guidelines of the document, the issue of ethical recruitment will be a thing of the past.
Technical Officer for Migration, ILO Regional Office for Africa Ms Neha Choudhary, while presenting the thirteen points guidelines, said that the document stipulated the responsibilities of all the actors in the industry including that of the government, Employers and Labour Recruiters among other details.
She called on the participants to acquaint themselves with the guidelines in order to achieve the sanity required in labour migration and recruitment.
General Secretary of ITUC-Africa, Comrade Joel Odigie speaking on the outcome of the workshop, said he was pleased with the energy which participant exhibited throughout the period of the meeting.
“What we have done is to bring our African Trade Union Migration network members together to try to carve out very practical, catchy messages for advancing fair recruitment on the continent.
“As you know, we have had crises, we have had issues with African migrant workers within the continent and outside, whereas for those of our brothers and sisters who go to work and live outside the continent, for most of them that are in the Middle East, the Gulf Cooperation Council GCC States and the larger Middle East because Lebanon and Jordan for instance are in the Middle East, but not in the GCC.
“These migrant workers from Africa that have gone there have faced a lot of issues and in tracking the issues, interrogating the issues, we find that most of them happen, let’s say, 70% happen from home, 30% are what you see in countries of destination.
“So if we can really deal with issues from countries of origin we are confident that we will substantially reduce the infractions against the rights of migrant workers and like we always say as trade unions, the business of complaining, of lamenting the problem and not finding solutions is not helpful to anyone.
“Within that context and that result, we have brought our people together with the International Labour Organization to see what we can do in contributing to a fair recruitment process on the continent”, he stated.
Speaking on the choice of participants who attended the workshop, the General Secretary said that it was deliberate to have a mix of different constituencies to attend the meeting.
“If you notice the categories of persons we have here, we have migrants, those who have gone before, who are back, we have recruitment agencies that are present from all over different parts of the continent, we have trade unions who themselves deal with this issue every day and then, of course, we have even persons from the media who are all here that is deliberate.
“The idea is to be able to harvest and harness the thoughts of everybody from your position how you understand the matter, put it together and frame a message that is helpful, an effective message that can help deliver for migrant workers, especially in the rights of within the space of protecting their rights”.
He said that trade Union’s interest in labour migration governance is to advance a pro-rights approach, where in the course of it, the rights, the human dignity of migrant workers and to very large extent members of their families are preserved.
Comrade Odigie also is optimistic that the message has come across “because one of the objectives beyond just framing the message is also that we want to grow the capacity of our constituents, so themselves become more abreast with the issues.
“Even the framing, when they go back home, they can also engage in this issue of framing themselves in ways that will help them to do the basic at the national level.
“I’m happy also because, you see, the thing we keep telling ourselves and we want our people to realize is that modern labour migration has got a peculiarity with women.
“The woman face is one that we also realize and we want to project positively, which is why if you look at the participants, more of the participants are women compared to men.
“It was deliberate so that even how they see it, how they understand the issue, how they have experienced it, all of it will come to the table and we’ll advance it together and I think on that score also, we have not done badly”, he said.
The Confederation he said, will go back in the next few days and come out with some messages that it believes can resonate across the African continent. “Our target groups are peculiar to us. Our target group notably are governments as regulators.
“We are targeting recruitment agencies so that the ethical nature of recruitment comes to the fore”.
The messages he said, will also target the migrant community so that they will better understand how to move without desperation and without exposing themselves to exploitation.
“We are targeting migrants, those who have gone, who have returned, and those who are intending to go, so they also understand the issues and know how to migrate safely.
“Migrant community like I said earlier, is important to us because decision to move is taking most time in the family so we want the family to also understand that when somebody is leaving, that person is leaving with hope, expectation, and even sometimes fears of the family”
Sharing his experience from the workshop with Voice of Nigeria, the Chairperson for the Uganda Community in Qatar, founder and Acting Chairperson of Africa Unite Qatar, comrade Alignment Rayan, one of the elements that he was focusing on was organising beyond borders and advice that concerned parties need to organise beyond borders whereby sending countries and receiving countries would be in touch and should be having corridors that can always initiate communication and collaboration.
By so doing he said, so doing, “you find that we can work on policies that serves both countries and both cities in all these countries”.
He also emphasised the need for the understanding of government’s policies based on where migrant workers are saying that every government has its own policies.
Before the workshop finally closed, all the participants individually, committed to predicating their efforts and time towards attaining fair recruitment in the continent.
Hauwa M.