Migrant workers head for dangerous shores
By Alan Boyd

SYDNEY - Labor imports will play a critical role in the recovery of Asian economies during the next decade, with development agencies expecting demand for skilled workers to reach unprecedented heights.

But legal safeguards on employment practices have not kept pace with this growth, exposing millions of transients to unsafe conditions, physical abuse or the risk of exploitation by their host countries.

According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), governments at each end of the lucrative manpower trade are shirking their responsibilities toward overseas workers.

Migration "has been associated with non-ratification of international labor conventions on migrant workers by both sending and receiving countries", the agency noted in a recent study. The outcome, it said, had been "growth in clandestine and illegal migration, unsatisfactory and abusive conditions of work, lack of protection for migrant workers, and exploitation of women migrant workers".

Based on estimates by the ILO and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), at least 10 million Asians will accept contract employment in another country next year, compared with 2 million to 3 million in the late 1980s. Only half will be official migrants: the others, euphemistically labeled "informals", will cross borders illegally or enter through other gray channels where they will not be officially documented.

About 50 percent of contract workers, both formal and informal, will come from Southeast Asia, and the rest from South Asia. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia are expected to receive most of the annual intake, but a sizable number will end up in Middle East states such as Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

A smaller group with valued skills in such fields as information technology and engineering will join the brain exodus to the United States and Western Europe. Most of these will come from India or the Philippines.

Migrants are drawn by the prospect of higher wages - often five times what they can earn at home - while their governments covet the billions of dollars that flow from foreign-exchange remittances. Global remittances to emerging countries were calculated by the Institute of International Finance at US$65 billion last year, of which at least 25 percent is believed to have been circulated in Asia. The IOM has forecast that this economic linkage will intensify as intra-regional labor exchanges accelerate under trade-liberalization pressures, "with flows particularly from Southeast Asia to the developed or emerging East Asian economies". However, the labor watchdog said a parallel approach was needed to the rights of migrant workers, which were often neglected in the rush for a share of contractual spoils.

Unlike Western Europe, South America and even Africa, Asia does not have a regional protocol that offers standardized guidelines and a consistent legal framework on the treatment of imported labor.

Unilateral compliance has also been slow. Of the 19 countries worldwide that have ratified the 1990 International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, none is from a recipient country in Asia or the Middle East. Among the major labor exporters, the Philippines has endorsed the covenant, which still needs one more supporter before it can into force. It has also been ratified by Sri Lanka, while Bangladesh is one of the 10 signatories.

The covenant mirrors some of the safeguards that are accorded under international human-rights statues, including protection against discrimination, torture and forced labor and the rights to life, freedom of thought and religion. A specific employment provision states that migrants shall "enjoy treatment not less favorable than that which applies to nationals of the state of employment" for remuneration, conditions and hours of work. They are also guaranteed the right to join and take part in the activities of trade unions "with a view to protecting their economic, social, cultural and other interests".

But studies by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) indicate that this is very often not the case in Asia and the Middle East. "Compared to Europe and North America, social protection and employment rights to which foreign workers in East and Southeast Asia are entitled are very low if not non-existent," OECD researcher Manolo Abella stated in a report that looked at the impact of the 1997 regional economic crisis on migrant employment.

"They commonly lack equal treatment with nationals in their conditions of employment. They are rarely accorded the right to join trade unions and ... are entitled to only limited social security benefits. Undocumented workers have been employed specifically by virtue of their inability to claim the most basic rights," Abella said.

All countries that are signatories to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade are technically liable to censure by the World Trade Organization if they interrupt the free exchange of labor by violating basic rights. However, trade-union representation is generally so low that the voices of migrant workers are rarely heard. About 25 percent of Japanese belong to a trade union, but only 14 percent of South Koreans and 15 percent of Malaysians do. Of the exporting countries, the Philippines has 40 percent representation but Indonesia 4 percent and Thailand 5 percent.

Abella said that hostility from nationals in host states was another impediment, often imposing business or political pressure on governments to treat their migrant workforces as inferior.

Migrants are in an especially difficult legal position in Japan and South Korea, where the importation of unskilled workers is theoretically prohibited, and hence it doesn't officially exist. So-called "informal" workers are the chief victims of criminal exploitation across the region, ranging from some forms of slavery to child labor, sexual exploitation and extortion.

The ILO warned that the trend was toward more undocumented employment, possibly because governments were over-regulating the trade in legal migration. "This development may, in part, be attributed to the increasing commercialization of the private recruitment process and the growing practice among developed countries of applying unduly restrictive immigration policies," the study stated.

"In addition to fostering irregularity this climate has contributed to the opening up of a lucrative market for the smuggling and trafficking of migrant workers. Women and children are especially victimized: many are trafficked into conditions of slave labor and/or forced prostitution."

It is this group that has attracted most attention from human-rights activists. In 1999, the Bangkok Declaration on Irregular Migration was drawn up with the aim of combating abuses on a regional scale, though there is little evidence it is succeeding.

The broader issue of labor imports has not been tackled at the same level, possibly because the market is becoming fiercely competitive as shortages of skilled workers worsen in East Asia. Nevertheless, the ILO believes that globalization pressures are encouraging recipient states to brush up their act, as is the realization that protecting labor rights improves the general standard of economic productivity.

European and US investors are increasingly scrutinizing labor legislation before they commit funds to emerging markets, partly in response to intensified shareholder pressure for greater accountability.

"Those countries which have developed more mature systems for collective bargaining and recognition of workers' rights are in a stronger position to reap the full benefits of human-resource-driven strategies," the ILO study noted.

"In particular, it is becoming increasingly clear that the process of transformation from low-cost, labor-intensive, export- oriented strategies to the technology-intensive strategies of newly industrializing economies is likely to be socially destabilizing without sound industrial relations and adequate labor protection."

(©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)