Regional Workshop on Ethical Business and Recruitment Practices in Labour Migration in the Middle-East, North Africa and Asia

  • 0

Regional Workshop on Ethical Business and Recruitment Practices in Labour Migration in the Middle-East, North Africa and Asia

On 1-4 May 2014 in Dubai, the UAE, MFA held a lawyers’ caucus as a major part of the Regional Workshop on Ethical Business and Recruitment Practices in Labour Migration in the Middle-East, North Africa and Asia. This was a training program for practitioners held in partnership with Migrant Forum in Asia, the Middle East Centre for Training and Development and the Diplomacy Training Program (DTP).

Thirty-two participants from 13 countries , including 10 lawyers from countries of origin in South Asia and Southeast Asia and countries of destination in West Asia, together with social workers, members of civil society, nationaluman rights institutions and private agencies, deliberated for four days on highly significant topics:

  • The right to access remedy – for migrant workers
  • Accountability and Access to Remedy – What remedy and redress mechanisms exist – and can be accessed by migrant workers; What access to remedy is offered by OECD Guidelines – Industry Standards and Codes of Conduct and ILO Conventions, NHRIs, Courts
  • The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and beyond
  • The state and private sector – the Dhaka Principles, OECD Guidelines, Codes of Conduct, Litigation
  • The State Duty to Protect Human Rights and the Right to Remedy
  • Human Rights, Migrant Workers and Recruitment Agencies – Identifying the Gaps Between (Guiding) Principles and Practice
  • Key Challenges in monitoring and regulating recruitment in the private sector – Can the GPs/DPs/OECD Guidelines/Codes Help
  • The Corporate Responsibility to Respect – Key Challenges for the Recruitment Industry and Employers in Countries of Origin and Destination. Can the (Guiding/Dhaka) Principles Help
  • Engaging With Business on the Rights of Migrants – The Why and How – Practical Session with Advocates

The training program equipped the practitioners with approaches to further understanding ethical business and recruitment practices, related frameworks and how they affect the rights of migrant workers and members of their families. Through role-playing and breakout sessions, the lawyers and civil society (considered as paralegal workers) were able to do run-throughs of probable responses to rights violation cases.


  • 0

1st Lawyers Beyond Borders Program: Building Partnerships for Justice for Migrant Workers

IMG_9113From 23-25 November 2011, Migrant Forum in Asia and local organizing partner, Human Rights and Development Foundation in partnership with Open Society Foundations (OSF), hosted Lawyers Beyond Borders: Building Partnerships for Justice for Migrant Workers in Bangkok, Thailand. The conference was the first of its kind, bringing together 31 lawyers from the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia who specialize in cases involving migrant workers. In addition to the lawyers were civil society activists in the area of migrants’ rights and observers from OSF.

This convening of lawyers was the result of four years of thinking and strategizing by MFA and its various partners, including Center for Migrant Advocacy (CMA), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the UN Migrant Workers Committee, and individual lawyers throughout Asia. It was designed in response to the recognized need for collaboration among lawyers who work on the cases of migrant workers in order to move towards impact litigation and policy advocacy in their work.  This program was also looked at as a means of beginning to forge important connections between lawyers and grassroots organizations working with migrant workers on the ground, as well as migrant communities in both countries of origin and destination.

An action plan was drawn up collaboratively on the final day of the workshop. The plan includes a series of projects that will be undertaken collectively, including:

  • drawing up plans for paralegal training sessions that will better connect civil society and foreign missions to the work of lawyers, and to help them to assist migrant worker communities with their legal needs;
  • compiling resources that will be of use to lawyers, migrant worker advocates, and migrant communities; supporting advocacy campaigns (e.g. the ratification of ILO Convention 189 on Decent Work for Domestic Workers);
  • supporting one another through effective networking and information sharing