GENEVA, June 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United Nations’ International Labor Organization (ILO) called on governments to protect millions of migrant workers that are plunging into despair due to the COVID-19 crisis.
The ILO warned that tens of millions of migrant workers have been left unemployed. It is estimated that 164 million migrant workers will have to return to their home countries and face poverty in economies that were already fragile, and families that are suffering a drop in overseas remittances.
“This is a potential crisis within a crisis,” said Manuela Tomei, director of the ILO’s conditions of work and equality department.
Tomei explained that migrant workers are most likely to work in the sectors hardest hit by shutdowns and to work informally with no social protection.
The report expanded on the lack of social security and exposure to abuse by employers as is the case in the Gulf states where losing a job implies no longer holding work and residence permits which makes migrants a “very easy pray for labor market exploitation.”
Nearly half of the 164 million migrant workers are women, comprising 4.7 percent of the global labor force.
The organization foresees that governments in Asia and Africa, in particular, will have to prepare for the millions of migrant workers that will return, whether through compulsion or voluntarily, as their job prospects evaporate, as highlights a report published by the organization Wednesday.
On the other hand, the Chief of labor migration at ILO Michelle Leighton remarked that almost a million migrant workers have returned to South Asia alone including 500,000 Nepalese who returned from India, more than 250,000 Bangladeshis from the Middle East, 130,000 Indonesians, 100,000 Burmese and 50,000 Filipinos.
Besides, Ethiopia expects from 200,000-500,000 migrants to return by year-end, Leighton said.
The report emphasized the urgency for the governments to extend their social protection policies to migrant workers as well by offering unilateral short term responses to address more immediate needs.
In this sense, it highlights the cases of France and Spain that have extended migrants’residence permits for three additional months to ensure broad access to health care.
Nations such as Qatar are providing migrants with medical services, including medical check-ups for COVID-19 and quarantine services, free of charge.
In Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, testing and medical treatment are free of charge for all COVID-19 infection cases irrespective of nationality. — NNN-AGENCIES
