The Migrant Labour General Workers’ Union (MLGWU) has appealed to government to approve the National Labour Migration Policy (LMP) by January 2020.
The LMP aims to strengthen the labour migration governance system and promote policy coherence, collection and analysis of reliable data, and the protection of the rights of migrants and their families.
It also seeks to promote the effective management of labour migration in the country, and to optimise the benefits of labour migration for development, ensuring a positive impact on migrants, sending and receiving countries, and communities.
In a statement to mark this year’s International Migrants’ Day, General Secretary of the Union, Justice Baako Ntarrmah, said the government must approve the policy in order to protect migrant workers.
“All migrants are entitled to equal protection of all their human rights” the statement said, adding that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”
This year’s commemoration is on the theme, “Migration and SDGs: Migrant Workers, Refugees and Foreigners-Expatriates Be Unionised for Social Justice and Employment Security.”
According to the statement, decent work was one of the 2030 agenda for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and it should recognise clearly the contribution of migrant workers for inclusive growth and sustainable development.
Many African governments and stakeholders, the statement said, had failed migrants and refugees, stressing that this was the time trade unions globally took up labour migration issues and employed mechanisms to address them.
“The benefits and opportunities of safe, orderly and regular migration are substantial but are often underestimated,” the statement noted, and appealed to African Trade Union leaders to increase their voices in labour migration education to help reduce migrant crimes.
“The MLGWU is against discrimination of any kind on basis of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political, social origin, birth in labour migration integration.
“The Union shall no longer tolerate inhumane and precarious working conditions provided by employers in Ghana or on the African continent to migrant workers, refugees and foreign expatriates,” the statement said.
The Union lauded President of The Gambia, Adama Barrow, for pledging to punish Gambian migrant human traffickers and asked other African leaders to do same to dissuade others from abusing migrant workers in their various countries.
BY TIMES REPORTER
