COMMITTEE ON PROTECTION OF RIGHTS OF MIGRANT WORKERS CONCLUDES ELEVENTH SESSION

The Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families today concluded its eleventh session after issuing its concluding observations and recommendations on the initial report of Sri Lanka.

In its concluding observations on Sri Lanka, the Committee noted with appreciation Sri Lanka’s commitment to migrant workers’ rights, as illustrated by the national constitutional, legislative, judicial, and administrative frameworks that included several institutional mechanisms. In particular, the Committee welcomed the establishment in 2007 of the new Ministry for Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare and the adoption in 2008 of a National Labour Migration Policy for Sri Lanka, elaborated with technical assistance from the International Labour Organization.

Among principal subjects of concern, the Committee regretted that Sri Lanka had not taken any measures to ensure that its legislation was in conformity with the Convention. It noted with regret that little information was provided by Sri Lanka with regard to foreign migrant workers in the country or Sri Lankans who had migrated abroad irregularly. Moreover, the Committee remained concerned that not all the provisions of the Convention were publicized and that there were no specific training programmes on the it for relevant public officials, including border police officers, embassy and consulate workers, social workers, judges, prosecutors and relevant government officials. The Committee also regretted that the Convention had not been translated into the national language. While the Committee welcomed the appointment of Labour Welfare Officers to serve as representatives of the Sri Lanka Bureau for Foreign Employment abroad, it regretted that only some consulates and embassies were equipped with legal assistance desks managed by host country lawyers and that Labour Welfare Officers did not consistently receive training to ensure adequate knowledge of the local language and of the labour laws of the receiving country.

Concerned that Sri Lankans working abroad were unable to exercise their right to vote in elections in their country of origin, the Committee encouraged Sri Lanka to expeditiously take all necessary steps to ensure that Sri Lankan. It urged Sri Lanka to ensure that the National Action Plan on Human Rights took into account the Committee’s concerns and recommendations expressed in its concluding observations, as well as those of civil society and recommended that it took measures to ensure that the Plan was adopted without delay. The Committee also recommended that Sri Lanka continue efforts to negotiate bilateral agreements on labour migration with major labour receiving countries in order to secure protection of the rights of migrant workers; strengthen collaboration among its consular services and Labour Welfare Officers abroad and the countries which received Sri Lanka workers to promote sound, equitable, humane and lawful conditions for migrant workers; and take steps to further improve the services provided to migrant workers by embassies and consulates of Sri Lanka, including through the provision of legal assistance and psychosocial counselling.

At this morning’s meeting, the Committee also discussed its plans for commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the Convention. Several ideas where mentioned, in particular to approach the Mexican Government with an aim of having an item on the Convention included in the agenda of the Fourth Global Forum on Migration and Development to be held in Mexico next year and to approach the Council of Europe for a joint conference with its Committee on Migration as well as migrants’ associations. The Chairman and the Secretariat were mandated to follow up on the suggestions. A representative of the International NGO Platform on the Migrant Workers’ Convention also briefly spoke about non-governmental organization initiatives in connection with the twentieth anniversary, including the Radio 18/12 project and the organization of a celebratory event in New York.


The next session of the Committee will be held from 19 to 30 April 2010 when it is scheduled to examine the initial report of Algeria.


For use of the information media; not an official record

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