Hosia Mviringi
President Emmerson Mnangagwa will today officiate at the Joint Launch of the National Disability and Labour Migration Policies at the Harare International Conference Centre in Harare.
The National Migration Policy is informed by the need to protect the rights of migrant labour to neighbouring countries.
It is informed by the recognition and need to address challenges such as brain drain, lack of social mechanisms to address challenges faced by vulnerable groups such as women and children, disabled and aged migrants.
According to the United Nations a migrant worker is a person who is to be engaged, is engaged, or has been engaged in a remunerated activity in a State of which he or she is not a national.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) also describes a migrant worker as a person who migrated from one country to another for purposes of being employed. These two definitions have to a larger extent been used for in the formulation of the National Labour Migration Policy (NLMP).
Migrants often contribute to the development of both receiving and sending countries through contribution of skills, labour and knowledge to host countries, while making contributions to sending countries through remittances and skills transfer.
Also to be addressed by this policy are such challenges as lack of proper up update engendered migration statistics. Up to date statistics are vital for planning purposes in terms of harnessing remittances and reintegration of returning residents.
Zimbabwe is both a receiving and sending country with the country housing several refugee camps around the country, while the country has a sizeable portion of its population living and working outside the country, this the need for this policy for planning purposes.
The policy spells out the strategic areas of focus, policy options and action plans under four sections namely governance of labour migration, protection and empowerment of migrant workers, harnessing labour migration for development, and development of comprehensive data on labour migration.
This policy is particularly important to Zimbabwe as the country’s citizens working in foreign countries have on many occasions have been victims of discrimination, abuse and sometimes have been murdered in xenophobic attacks.
Some foreign citizens are subjected to ill-treatment at the hands of employers while being forced into dirty, dangerous and degrading work environments abroad.
Therefore this policy comes at the appropriate time to enable and empower the government to fashion out appropriate interventions to protect the rights of citizens abroad.
The policy seeks to lay the framework for intergovernmental engagement as a way to address such challenges as migrant social safety nets.
Recently Zimbabweans based abroad have complained of ill-treatment in hospitals within host countries, making access to health services a challenge.
Recent Comments