- Absence of bilateral agreements a significant challenge
Speaking to The Sunday Morning, International Organization for Migration (IOM) Chief of Mission for Sri Lanka and the Maldives Sarat Dash explained the experiments which were digitising the labour migration process through the Integrated Guidance and Referral System – a pilot project successfully completed as of now.
The IOM, in partnership with the Ministry of Labour and Foreign Employment, tested working with this platform, which Dash said they were “hoping to establish for public use”.
Following are excerpts from the interview:
With the social and economic changes happening in Sri Lanka and in the South Asian region following the Covid-19 pandemic and the ongoing economic crisis, labour migration seems to have increased and broadened, demanding more concern over proper system implementation. How do you analyse these trends and challenges?
Considering the different migrant worker routes in South Asia, we can see that it is still mostly targeted to the Gulf countries. In labour migration, the decision of the migrant worker is critical. Today, it is a desperate decision, not voluntary. In such situations, the right information from reliable sources is crucial.
The absence of bilateral agreements between labour-sending countries and labour-receiving countries is a significant issue. This was absent at the very early stages of labour migration from Asian countries.
Additionally, the migrants lacked the necessary set of skills to fit the job profile of employers. A lack of skills results in weakening the labour-sending countries when entering into bilateral agreements with the host countries. This affects the vulnerability and safety of migrant workers and these concerns had not been taken care of by relevant stakeholders.
Recently, Sri Lanka hosted the Thematic Area Working Groups of the Colombo Process – the forum of labour-sending countries. How do you view the present CP, its progress, and current state? Is it on the right track?
The Colombo Process is a state-led information-sharing and policy dialogue forum that brings together 12 labour-sending countries in Asia. The CP is not a network but a consultative process, meeting together in a very non-binding manner.
The labour-sending countries have better bargaining power than in earlier days. At the inception, collecting foreign revenue was the prime objective. But today, these countries are aware that migrant workers are sent not simply to fulfil their country’s requirement but to fill the labour market gaps of the destination countries.
Along with the establishment of the CP, the labour-receiving countries initiated their network – the Abu Dhabi Dialogue – in 2007. Interestingly, the Abu Dhabi Dialogue offered observer positions to the Colombo Process. A rotating nature was adopted in electing the Abu Dhabi chair, where during one round, the labour-receiving countries had the chance to be elected as chair while the next round went to the labour-sending countries. The position of chair rotates between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and the Colombo Process countries.
Today, the labour-receiving countries are also of the understanding that migrant workers are not slaves but serve as part of their country’s labour force. In the Abu Dhabi Dialogue, the decision-making powers are still with the GCC countries. The Abu Dhabi Dialogue is convened by them and it is their process. We see this shift in leadership as a significant improvement. It indicates that the Gulf countries, as destination countries, have recognised the value and rights of migrant workers.
Yet there is a lot to be achieved. As long as the labour-sending countries do not recognise their own gaps and address them, continuously blaming destination countries serves no purpose.
The IOM is partnering with the Ministry of Labour and Foreign Employment and the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE) in various attempts at upgrading the labour migration process. There was recent attention on digitising the entire recruitment process. Could you elaborate on this?
The IOM, in partnership with the Labour and Foreign Employment Ministry, came up with the IGRS platform, which is a pilot project that we are hoping to establish for public use.
In this, we use a mobile app that can be downloaded to a smart phone by anyone. Anyone with a dream of migrating for employment can upload the application along with certain details the system will request in the process of uploading. Then it will be transferred to a centralised process, in which there will be career counsellors at the back end, who will review this profile and check whether the requirements match the job aspired to by the applicant.
Next, representatives from the Manpower and Employment Department will reach out to the applicant and suggest necessary upscaling in the applicant’s set of skills and provide guidance on how to improve the gap in skills.
The applications with the required set of skills will be transferred to the National Employment Trading Database. Once this is created, any agency or employer, either local within the Association of Licensed Foreign Employment Agencies (ALFEA) or foreign employers, be they from the GCC countries or otherwise, will have access to the database, allowing them to directly reach suitable candidates and recruit for employment.
This platform is now almost ready to be expanded to any category of foreign employment. There are a few software updates to be done with the IGRS. The SLBFE will be the custodian of the platform.
It has been created with highly user-friendly options and this will be linked to training institutes for migrant workers. Foreign employment agencies and Gulf-based employers will be given access to the database by the SLBFE in order to recruit people. This will eliminate a lot of recruitment flaws that are currently happening. We believe that this will make foreign job-seeking more practical and convenient.
Another thematic area much discussed during the CP TAWGs was about upgrading skill levels. What is your evaluation of this?
Upgrading skill qualifications is the most sustainable method to avoid the exploitation happening in the labour migration sector.
The labour-sending countries should match the current skill requirements of the destination countries. For example, as the destination/labour-receiving countries currently require advanced housekeepers and advanced caregivers, labour-sending countries must evaluate and upgrade to the matching levels. As of now, the skill qualification levels are elevated to National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) Level 4.
The agents, on the other hand, rather than giving the migrant worker a pre-departure allowance, can use that money or part of it to fund training facility improvements. It is better to invest that money in training potential migrant workers rather than giving them the money and seeing it be wasted.
Despite the multi-dimensional shifts over the years in the labour migration field, the social and policy changes in the labour-receiving countries appear to be happening at a snail’s pace. How do you review the changes that occurred over the years?
Earlier the ‘kafala’ system – a locally-implemented recruitment system operated within the labour-receiving countries – was strong, yet it is hardly practised at present. These countries are just coming out of previously established systems. This means that they have started recognising that these people – migrant workers – are not slaves but individuals who support the filling of labour market gaps in their countries and that they extend a positive contribution to the society and the economy.
This is not only limited to GCC countries, but is also visible in countries like the Maldives. In the Maldives, every third person is a migrant worker. Without migrant workers, their economy will not survive – it will collapse.
Underneath all these facts I still see a resistance undermining the status of migrant workers. Yet, as policy decision-makers and experts explain, with the younger generation, elements such as xenophobia are emerging. This may be due to a lack of education and awareness.