Mr. Shabari Nair was one of the key panelists during the virtual panel discussion held on GCM(Global Compact for Migration ) Objective 6: “Facilitate fair and ethical recruitment and safeguard conditions that ensure decent work”. This event was hosted by Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism [GRFDT], Migrant Forum in Asia, Cross-Regional Centre for Refugees and Migrants, and Civil Society Action Committee on 6th October 2020. Mr. Shabari Nair recently took up the position of Labor Migration Specialist for South Asia, based in the ILO Decent Work Technical Support Team (DWT) in New Delhi. He provides technical advisory services to seven countries in the sub-region: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. He emphasized on the significance of migrant laborers in the entire compact and stated it as a foundational stone on which all the 23 objectives of the Global Compact for Migration revolves.
Role of Labor Migrants in GCM
Mr. Nair in his discussion on the webinar of the Global Compact for Migration (GCM) mentioned how in the year 2018 when the compact was being formulated, there was an ongoing global debate on choosing the title of the compact in the heart of which lay the importance of the low skilled workers who needed safety measures with respect to migration. The skilled and educated migrants are usually given an easy passage into the country of destination. But, this particular objective discusses how the low–skilled labor migrants are the targeted population. The labor migrants instead are sent via a recruitment agency to the country of destination and the recruitment charges are paid by the labor migrants which contribute to the exploitation that they have to deal with. The extent to which the nature of the recruitment process has been changed since the year 1975 (when the migration of the low skilled workers had just begun after the independence of the Gulf countries) till the current day is astonishing. In drawing the comparison between both the periods, Mr. Nair said that there was a shift “from a demand for workers to supply driven recruitment system”.
Rising Awareness on Decent Work
Decent work according to the ILO, “comprises of 4 pillars i.e. productive employment, employment creation, social protection and social dialogue. Productive employment deals with skills or employment that defines future scenario of employment; social protection deals with housing, medical facility and social dialogue is where there is a communication between trade union, employees and governments” said Mr. Nair. He discussed the concept of decent work through this particular objective which contributes to 60 percent in the entire Global Compact for Migration covering 22 other objectives. Decent work beholds the meaning of what constitutes dignity, social position of low skilled workers in the countries of destination, which serves as their ground for earning money so that they are able to provide for their families in the countries of origin through remittances. An example for this includes the low skilled migrant workers of Kerala who move to the Gulf countries in order to support their families in the home country.
Precautionary Measures for Labor Migration
Scholarly literatures on migration and policies highlight the marginalized nature of the labor migrants in the destination countries. This prevailing issue is being proposed by the migration experts and policymakers through the Global Compact for Migration (GCM) The process of marginalizing the migrant laborers start in the home countries itself as they are unable to provide decent work facilities to them. The speaker thus said that if that is promoted and increased in the home countries, then the quality of decent work would also increase in the countries of destination which would allow the labor migrants to have a peaceful life.
Pooja Priya is a postgraduate in sociology from Delhi school of economics, University of Delhi. She holds research interests in: migration within the global south, marginalization for ethnically minority groups, racialization in India. Twitter id : poojapr9285606