Notwithstanding their lands being the biggest source of migrant workers, South Asian labourers are the worst victims of maltreatment and abuse in their host countries. Poorly regulated working condition and sponsorship systems in some countries are often the root causes of the workers' rights abuse.A major destination of the South Asian workers is the Middle East, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to be particular. According to a report, India alone has around 9.0 million of its citizens working in the GCC countries. According to an estimate, 73 per cent of all Bangladeshi migrant workers (some 12.5 million) who travelled abroad since 2004 have gone to the GCC countries.Other South Asian countries also have a large number of their citizens employed as migrant workers in those countries. So the question is, what the regional governments are doing to improve the condition of their citizens employed in the Gulf countries.
South Asian governments should be able to work together to protect the rights and well-being of their migrant workers in the host countries. To that end, measures like the use of diplomatic pressure on the host governments, expansion of services of the diplomatic missions of the respective countries abroad for migrant labourers need to be adopted. Since migrant workers from South Asian nations face similar kinds of exploitation in the host countries in question, migration experts from the region met at a seminar held recently in the city and stressed the need for unity among the regional governments to tackle the issue.Unfortunately, disunity among the South Asian countries, according to some speakers at the seminar, is coming in the way of influencing the host governments to amend laws so their citizens working there might have their working conditions improved and their rights protected. In fact, it is signing of migration agreements bilaterally between the source country and the host government that is engendering competition to the detriment of the broader interests of the migrant workers from the region. In consequence, the types of sufferings the migrant workers experience include unhealthy living conditions due to lack of basic amenities, physical and mental torture, low wages and even wage theft.
So, to ensure compliance of the host countries regarding establishment of the rights of the migrant workers employed there according to the ILO standards remains a big challenge. Here comes the argument for meeting these challenges together. Notably, a non-South Asian country, the Philippines, has effectively utilised its diplomatic leverage to protect its workers employed in the GCC countries. At one stage, it even banned migration of its workers to Gulf countries and later lifted the ban after signing agreements and memoranda of understanding (MoU) with the UAE, Kuwait and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).
The agreements were to protect especially the migrant domestic workers from that country. Even India and Pakistan are learnt to have signed MoUs with some Gulf countries. Domestic work being a feminised area, the issue of protecting female domestic workers could be better addressed by taking it regionally. While considering the issue of migrant workers' rights, it is also important to ensure that they have the required skills to contribute to the host economies they work for. So, skill development of the migrant workers should be a priority. There should be efforts to know the kind of skills in demand in the host economies so the migrant workers could be equipped accordingly.
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