Editorial
Migrant workers' rights
Ratify the 1990 UN Convention
What came out very loud and clear at the dialogue on "Safe Migration and Remittances" organised by the Daily Star and Refugee and Migratory Movement and Research Unit recently in Dhaka, is the strong rationale for ratifying the 1990 UN International Convention on the Protection of Rights of All Migrant Workers. Although Bangladesh is one of the earliest signatories to the Convention, the same is yet to be ratified by the government even after almost nine years it was signed in October 1998. Among other things ratification would strengthen our case for negotiating the right kind of employment terms and conditions for our workers.Let us put the matter in perspective. There are currently around 4 million Bangladeshi migrant workers (excluding the diaspora), whose yearly remittance has crossed the USD 6 billion mark, the largest foreign exchange earner of the country. In fact over the last two decades it has accounted for nearly 35 percent of our export earnings. The number of workers to have gone abroad on foreign employment till May 2007 has nearly caught up with the total number of labour migrants for the entire 2006. Given this reality there is very little of note that has been done to ensure protection of their minimum rights. Just think, as one participant so starkly brought out at the dialogue, what would happen if all the migrant labourers decided one fine morning not to repatriate their earnings! It is regrettable that our migrant workers face problems and harassments both at home and in the receiving country. And of the five stages a migrant labourer has to pass through from the time he/she decides to seek employment abroad till the time he/she returns home, four of them have to be negotiated at home while only one in the host country. In every one of the four stages the intending person is exploited and cheated, which the government can help stop by identifying and severely punishing those involved in the chain, starting from the recruiting agencies to the related government agencies. The fifth stage, in most cases, is equally arduous, if not more. It is for the government to also take seriously the argument that but for some complicacies in the procedures of transferring money, the earning from the remittances of our migrant workers would have doubled the present amount. While the government should constantly seek to expand our labour market, ensuring the basic minimum rights of the migrant workers is an obligation that must be fulfilled in tandem with the host countries. It is time that we stopped looking at our migrant workers as economic commodities that give the country economic returns. They should be treated as human being, and this is what the Convention obligates all signatories to ensure, among other things.
|
|
