Diplomats, representatives from UN organizations and civil society on Sunday underscored the need for ensuring fundamental rights of all migrant workers as the migrants continued their contribution to the development activities at the countries of origin as well as the destination.
They observed that the protection of migrant rights would be ensured in the Global Compact on Migration (GCM), which would be the first intergovernmentally negotiated agreement under auspices of the United Nations to cover all dimensions of international migration in a holistic and comprehensive manner.
Speaking at a dialogue on ‘Migration Issue: Global Perspective, Politics and Action,’ organized by Foreign Affairs ministry in collaboration with Royal Norwegian Embassy in Dhaka on Sunday, they called for ensuring safe, orderly, regular and responsible migration with controlling forced migration and trafficking in persons.
Foreign Affairs ministry’s secretary Md Shahidul Haque chaired the dialogue.
In her welcome address, Norwegian Ambassador Sidsel Bleken described migration as challenging phenomenon which has been taking place across the globe.
‘We need to ensure benefits of the all migrants and make sure migration taking place in orderly manner,’ she said.
Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque who presented keynote paper at the dialogue said that Bangladesh government has proposed the UN to create the global compact for governance of migration.
‘Bangladesh always believes that migration is a political phenomenon…it is getting complex day by day and also being influenced by the geopolitics,’ he said, adding that migration issues should dealt on the political consideration.
About possible outcome of compact, the foreign secretary expressed his hope that the Global Compact for Migration should firstly be a legally binding agreement. ‘It must be political and normative.’
Tove Skarstein, director and head of section for migration at Norwegian foreign affairs ministry, said that migration has become global phenomenon londontoto, so all migrants should enjoy the universal human rights at all stages of migration.
She said that only voluntary migration should be encouraged and all migrants should be ensured human rights in the Global Compact for Migration.
Referring to Mckinsey Global Institute’s recent report on ‘People on The Move: Global Migration’s Impact and Opportunity’ IOM deputy chief of mission in Dhaka, Abdusattor ESOEV said that 90 percent of the world’s 247 million cross-border migrants moved voluntarily, usually for economic reasons.
‘The remaining 10 percent are refugees and asylum seekers who have fled to another country to escape conflict and persecution,’ he said.
Referring to MGI estimates, he also said that migrants contributed roughly $6.7 trillion, or 9.4 percent, to global GDP in 2015—some $3 trillion more than they would have produced in their origin countries.
He also said that 50 per cent of the migrants moved from developing to developed countries while 35 per cent were high-skill migrants with tertiary education or above. ‘We believe GCM is very important for migration governance.’
Chief Technical Adviser to International Labour Organization in Dhaka office, Deepa Bharathi said that as the labour migrants became central part of the GCM, so the ILO has proposed for ensuring balance of labour supply-demand with a view to enrich all communities.
She also called for facilitating regular migration channels, recognizing skill certifications and protecting rights of migrants, especially the female migrants under legal frameworks like Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) or bilateral agreements.
WARBE Development Foundation chairman Syed Saiful Haque said that migrant workers in Bangladesh were facing many problems like lack of proper information for migrating to the overseas destinations.
‘Besides there are pertinent issues-- no ethical recruitment system, high cost of migration, less skill, outsourcing pattern of recruitment and visa trading, immediately needed to be addressed to ensure safe migration, orderly, regular and responsible migration,’ he said.
Migrationnewsbd.com/ob