Greater collaborative effort to protect migrant workers in the Gulf
1 December 2014
A series of initiatives aimed to increase the protection and employment conditions for millions of foreign workers in the Persian Gulf have been agreed at a meeting of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue in Kuwait last week [26-27 November].
Mon, 1 Dec 2014
A series of initiatives aimed to increase the protection and employment conditions for millions of foreign workers in the Persian Gulf have been agreed at a meeting of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue in Kuwait last week [26-27 November].
The dialogue is a collaborative approach involving representatives of Asian countries that are both sending and receiving labour in the Gulf region. Set up in 2008, the Abu Dhabi Dialogue was designed to help develop temporary labour mobility, as well as to influence practices and policies.
According to media reports, the ‘Kuwait declaration’ of last week resolved that the countries involved work together to “to prevent and sanction exploitative recruitment practices that place workers at great risk and undermine fundamental rights”.
According to Sri Lanka’s official government news portal, the country’s minister of foreign employment promotion and welfare Dilan Perera called for the introduction of a standard employment contract for domestic sector workers in GCC [Gulf Co-operation Council] countries.
Sri Lanka’s permanent representative to the United Nations Ravinatha Aryasinha called for labour-receiving countries to support a “qualification recognition process”.
He said that would “not only bring greater predictability by ensuring that those recruited are of a better quality and will be better paid commensurate with their skill, but it would also reduce the tensions that sometimes occur between employer and employee".
The countries represented were: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Kuwait, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, the Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.
A series of initiatives aimed to increase the protection and employment conditions for millions of foreign workers in the Persian Gulf have been agreed at a meeting of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue in Kuwait last week [26-27 November].
The dialogue is a collaborative approach involving representatives of Asian countries that are both sending and receiving labour in the Gulf region. Set up in 2008, the Abu Dhabi Dialogue was designed to help develop temporary labour mobility, as well as to influence practices and policies.
According to media reports, the ‘Kuwait declaration’ of last week resolved that the countries involved work together to “to prevent and sanction exploitative recruitment practices that place workers at great risk and undermine fundamental rights”.
According to Sri Lanka’s official government news portal, the country’s minister of foreign employment promotion and welfare Dilan Perera called for the introduction of a standard employment contract for domestic sector workers in GCC [Gulf Co-operation Council] countries.
Sri Lanka’s permanent representative to the United Nations Ravinatha Aryasinha called for labour-receiving countries to support a “qualification recognition process”.
He said that would “not only bring greater predictability by ensuring that those recruited are of a better quality and will be better paid commensurate with their skill, but it would also reduce the tensions that sometimes occur between employer and employee".
The countries represented were: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Kuwait, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, the Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.
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