Steps to rescue migrant workers from strife and calamity torn countries

Steps to rescue migrant workers from strife and calamity torn countries

Question - The successful conclusion of Operation Rahat was announced recently. Discuss the steps which have and should be taken for transporting migrant workers from such strife and calamity torn countries.

India has launched several successful operations for rescuing migrant workers from strife torn nations such as Libya and Yemen. Iraq and Syria were also other countries in the Middle East embroiled in war.

A massive chunk of India’s 21 million migrants are located in the Middle East. Out of the 16,000 expats in Yemen, around 5000 were Indians.

Steps for Rescuing Migrant Workers

• Philippines government has collaborated with the European Commission, the US and IOM along with neighbouring nations to work out a strategy for evacuating migrant workers

• The first Migrants in Countries in Crisis consultation was held in Manila discussing many areas such as:

- Role of employers
- Private sector and hiring agent’s responsibilities
- Repatriation of workers should be carried out through public private partnership mode

• National labour legislations of nations where migrants are working also need to be strengthened

• South Asian Association for Regional Conference and Association of South East Asian Nations have also adopted special programmes such as:

- ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response
- Agreement on Rapid Response for Natural Disasters

• Governments also needs assistance from civil society organisations and groups such as Red Cross and Red Crescent

• Temporary safe houses can also be provided by NPOs and NGOs

• Mitigation responses to natural calamities and strife are important solutions as well

• Emergency repatriation should also be part of labour contracts

• Insurance should be provided to migrant workers in the event of strife or calamity

• National staff and lower wage workers should be accorded equal priority as management and higher executives during the evacuation programme

• Recruitment agencies should also take some responsibility for the welfare of employees for example Nepal has stipulated that recruitment agencies should pay for the evacuation of the employees in war or strife torn nations

• Labour law should clearly spell out role of private sector in evacuation and responsibilities of the latter for the same

• Aim should be to save lives, increase protection, decrease vulnerabilities and improve responses; therefore preventative measures such as clear evacuation
procedures in organisations and companies is a must

• Migrants can also be protected through laws designed to shield them from effect of regional strife or calamity

Facts and Stats

• Working paper on MICICI has indicated 117.3 million persons were displaced by natural calamities between the years 2008 and 2012

• 20.6 million of these were in South East Asia.

• In the Indian Ocean tsunami, around 2.2 million people were displaced, many of them migrant workers

• Thousands of migrant workers from India, China, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh

• and the Philippines have been fleeing war zones in Libya, Syria and Iraq in recent times

• Gulf War of 1990 affected close to 1.5 million migrants including 5,00,000 from Asia

• Asian countries such as India and China account for 80% of the international migrant population

• India alone accounts for 30% of the migrant population