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The welfare and protection of migrant workers should be part of SAARC agenda as South Asia provides 1.5 million workers to labour-receiving countries every year, government and ILO officials said Monday, reports bdnews24.com As 43 percent of the South Asian migrant workers served in other South Asian countries, the incorporation was necessary, they said.
The welfare of South Asian migrant workers had become a matter of concern since the recruitment of workers in the South Asian countries was plagued with corrupt practices, said the International Labour Organisation.
"If South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation includes the issue of migration and workers' welfare, much of the migration-related problems could be solved easily," expatriates welfare and overseas employment secretary Abdul Matin Chowdhury told reporters ahead of Tuesday's international conference on overseas workers.
Representatives from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, United Arab Emirates and Sri Lanka will attend conference at Dhaka Sheraton Hotel.
The ILO and the ministry are jointly organising the Dhaka conference.
"There is an ASEAN programme of cooperation on migration. SAARC should also initiate a similar programme of cooperation on migration of South Asian workers," Panudda Boonpala, the ILO director in its Dhaka office, told journalists.
The ILO in its statement said, "The rights protection for South Asia's migrant workers is the major concern."
It said that the migration process in the South Asian countries was costly and plagued with rampant corruption.
According to the ILO, the total number of migrant workers from South Asia in the world is 24 million. Of the total, 29 percent workers were from Bangladesh while the highest 38 percent from India.
The ILO said that other than the South Asian countries, 60 percent of the South Asian migrant workers went to Gulf countries, 15 percent each to Europe and North America.
According to 2007 ILO figures, remittances to South Asia were estimated to have totaled US $43 billion of which Bangladesh had a share of US $6.1 billion.
In 2007, 8.32 lakh Bangladeshis went abroad for work, according to the figures of the expatriates' welfare and overseas employment ministry.
"The conference will give the labour-providing countries and labour-receiving countries an opportunity to discuss the problems of migration and recommend solutions," Boonpala told bdnews24.com.
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