The 20th International Migration Day on 18 December in the midst of the pandemic, with its disproportionate impact on migrants demands retrospection. We need to widen our time horizon to the last decades to see how far we have come and review the lapses along the way. We also need to focus on the virus-ridden year that is drawing to an end.
Both time frames are intricately connected. Many lapses in the last 20 years in governance have had an acute, amplified impact on migrants this year. Covid-19 magnified the weaknesses and highlighted achievements that helped migrants cope better.
Communication was critical during the pandemic as that made the long hours of waiting at labour camps, quarantine areas, and even isolation centres bearable. Smart phones have empowered migrant workers, given them the opportunity to be their own storytellers.
In this paper, we reported stories of migrants who received support after they live streamed on Facebook upon facing apathy from the authorities. The Malaysian Embassy’s weekly Facebook live programs answer queries of migrants need to be made the norm.
We step into the 2020s knowing that technology has transformative power in migration governance. An example of this is the Department of Foreign Employment’s (DOFE) recent move to allow the renewal of labour approvals and acceptance of foreign employment fund contributions online.
Abdul Sattar, a pioneer recruiter with over 40 years of experience, shared with me the struggles of obtaining job offers abroad in the early days. Nepalis then did not have access to the Gulf employers and they assumed Nepal was part of India. The only job offers for Nepalis came through Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani recruiters because employers were unfamiliar with Nepal. Once Nepalis proved themselves as hard workers, the employers became keen to hire more of them.
“Times were different then. We were kept on a different pedestal and treated with respect,” Sattar says. Once profits, unhealthy competition and politics entered the industry, things took a downturn.
“Have you ever considered how, since years, we have workers from far-flung areas like Rolpa who had never even come to Kathmandu, working and earning in Qatar or the UAE?” he asks.“Who made that possible?”
As opportunities open up in non-traditional countries such as those in Europe, the same questions regarding familiarity and access of recruiters to employers come up. If diversification of migrant destination country is a priority, we cannot overlook the role of recruiters.
The pandemic has further underscored the need for international cooperation in migration governance. At the same time, it has revealed the inadequacies of existing international cooperation mechanisms.
The last 20 years saw the establishment of regional platforms like the Colombo Process between migrant sending countries in 2003, and the Abu Dhabi Dialogue in 2008 between both sending and receiving countries, as well as the Global Compact on Migration.
These forums that allow countries with varying agendas and priorities in migration to come together for a larger shared cause, is a huge step in migration governance and a result of persistent negotiations.
The past two decades also witnessed the signing of several bilateral labour agreements starting with the one with Qatar in 2005. However, their implementation has always been weak even when there is scope for mutually beneficial cooperation such as skills partnerships.
When Nepalis working in India unexpectedly showed up at the borders in the hundreds of thousands this year, it reminded us of not one, but two elephants in the room. The first one was the India-Nepal border that we continue to overlook, and the second was the unpreparedness of local governments which should have been well-placed to address the problems of migration, but have not been mobilised.
Nepal’s federalisation offers an immense opportunity in migration governance. There were initial small wins like allowing renewals of labour approvals at provincial levels or applying for welfare fund benefits at local levels. But the pandemic was a wake-up call, as the onus of managing tens of thousands of returnees from India has been placed on local governments amidst lack of data and resources.
Moving forward, leveraging the proximity advantage of local governments and decentralised service delivery will be critical. It means making up for the last three years since local governments were given a bunch of foreign employment mandate including returnee management, data collection and information dissemination.