Human Rights Advocacy
Declaration of Migration Decade: 2012-2021
A proposal to the Prime Minister
Dr Tasneem Siddiqui
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Photo: thedailystar.net |
Tomorrow is 18th December, International Migrant Workers' Day. We are extremely happy that our honourable Prime Minister, H.E. Sheikh Hasina, personally taking part in this celebration. On behalf of thousands of migrants workers of Bangladesh, private sector and civil society organisations, we urge our Prime Minister to declare 2012-2021 as the Decade of Migration.
Honourable Prime Minister, we urge you for such declaration for the following reasons:
Recently Bangladesh has been identified as one of the next eleven countries with high potential to become world's emerging economies in the 21st century. Three sectors have contributed in placing Bangladesh to such a status. These are garments, services and remittances.
Labour migration and remittances are indeed integral parts of Bangladesh's economy. Since the 1970s more than 7.1 million Bangladeshis migrated to the Gulf and Southeast Asian countries. Their income sustains millions of households. In 2010 short and long term migrants remitted US$11.4 billion. This is 3.22 times higher than the net foreign exchange earnings from the remittance sector, 12.5 times more than foreign direct investment and 6.4 times more than the foreign aid received by the country.
The Government of Bangladesh has undertaken different steps to reduce hardship and exploitation of the migrants. The 2010 Global Forum on Migration and Development and the 2010 'World Migration Report' of IOM, have identified capacity building of structures to govern migration as the key area of attention for both receiving and sending countries. Capacity building for governing migration will not be possible if they are done in a piecemeal fashion. It requires long term vision and actions and has to be made integral part of upcoming five year development plans and the 10-Year Perspective Plan.
We are proud that this year the Government has ratified the 1990 UN Convention on Migrants. Now it is incumbent on the government to reflect the provisions of the treaty on national laws and practices. Performing such tasks requires time, resources and capacity. Declaration of a Decade will help orderly reform of existing laws.
The Foreign and Expatriates' Welfare Ministries need to articulate knowledge based evidence to convince the receiving countries of the contributions that migrant workers make to the economies of those countries. The regional initiatives such as the Colombo Process and the Abu Dhabi Forum as well as multilateral forums such as the Global Forum on Migration and Development and the Global Migration Group may serve as appropriate platforms for such engagement. These will necessitate long drawn activities and the Declaration of a Decade of Migration will help such engagements.
The potential of migrants' remittances as source of capital formation for large scale development projects needs to be unleashed. If migrants are given incentives then bringing in migrants' investment in projects such as Padma Bridge may not be a difficult proposition. To transform migrants' remittance into tool for development we at RMMRU urge the Prime Minister to declare 2012-2021 as the Decade of Migration.
The global financial crisis and the recent political turmoil in the Middle Eastern countries have brought forth the issue of social and economic reintegration of the returnee migrants. Over the next five years the concerned ministry needs to undertake comprehensive programme that should include national level drive for data generation of all returnee migrants to link them with jobs and investment schemes.
Declaration of the Decade of Migration (2012-2012) will certainly help building of infrastructure and capacity of policy making and service providing public and private bodies. It will also help the country attain the ultimate goal of transforming labour migration into an effective tool for economic and social development of migrants, their families and the nation.
Declaration of the Decade will ensure due emphasis on governance of labour migration, particularly by those who are engaged in preparing long term development plans. Ten year is a good time span for planning and attainment of short term, mid-term and long term goals.
We therefore, through the Hon'ble ministers for Finance and Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment and the Chair of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Ministry of EWOE request the Prime Minister to consider declaring 2012-2021 as the Decade of Migration.
The writer is Professor in Political Science and Chair of RMMRU.
