Only 43 countries ratify UN convention on migrants’ rights

MANILA, Philippines – Only 43 countries have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.

The signatories are mostly countries with a large number of workers deployed abroad. No country in the Middle East, which hosts a sizeable number of foreign workers, signed the treaty.

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Esteban Conejos Jr. said some countries have not ratified the treaty because they believe it’s an additional burden to them and unnecessary because of existing legislation.

“It really takes a long time. As of today, only 43 countries ratified, mostly labor-sending countries,” Conejos said.

Conejos added that the Philippines has been active in the campaign for the treaty’s ratification “but we cannot do it unilaterally.”

“But the effort is there. We must get the cooperation of both sending and receiving countries,” he said.

Major labor-receiving countries like the United States, Italy and Singapore have not ratified the treaty.

The Philippines has more than two million migrant workers in the Middle East, half of them in Saudi Arabia.

The UN said it is unfortunate that the Migrant Workers Convention has led to the division of the world between those who have signed the Convention and those who have not.

Meanwhile, Akbayan party-list Rep. Walden Bello has expressed concern over increasing reports of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) being abused in the Middle East.

He said the Philippines sends an average of 3,000 OFWs daily. Bello chairs the House committee on overseas workers affairs.

“However, due to the poor legal structure of many less-than-democratic countries in the region, as well as, the difficult, dangerous, and impossible working conditions, our OFWs have been continuously subjected to extreme psychological, physical, and legal abuse,” Bello said.

“Unfortunately, we have another tragic incident, which highlights the growing distress, and suffering that has gripped our OFWs in the Middle East,” he said referring to the apparent suicide of a returning OFW from Abu Dhabi inside a lavatory of a Gulf Air aircraft.

“There seems to be no end to this stream of reports, which indicate the depth of the problem in the region,” he said.

He said here have been no shortage of reports and complaints concerning illegal recruitment, and trafficking of thousands of Filipinos, “who desperately seek jobs abroad and finding themselves in the dangerous waters of Middle Eastern low-paying labor markets.”

“From Gulf of Aden (shores of Somalia), to the Levant (Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon), and the Gulf, we see nothing, but a multitude of reports regarding the abduction of Filipino seamen, continuous abuse of domestic Filipino workers, non-payment of salaries, illegal recruitment, rape of nurses, and a whole series of disturbing events,” Bello said.

“It’s high time for us to seriously contemplate more fundamental measures to effectively address growing grievances of our OFWs regarding abuses, torture, and dangers that confront them in the region,” he said.

He said the government must re-evaluate its entire deployment strategy to the Middle East and seriously renegotiate its terms of deployment to countries that have reaped immense benefits from contributions of OFWs.

Currently, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is actively engaged in an “accreditation scheme,” which determines whether a particular country is “safe” and “legal” for the deployment of OFWs.

“We have received a number of reports regarding abuses taking place in currently accredited nations, namely Syria and Kuwait. Moreover, we have received reports of Filipinos illegally deployed to non-accredited and banned countries such as Jordan through third-countries, namely Hong Kong and Dubai,” he said. –-Pia Lee-Brago (The Philippine Star) with Paolo Romero