By Michael Oche
International Labour Organisation (ILO) has restated the important role of the media in providing reliable information to migrantworkers on safe migration pathways as well as fair recruitment practices.
The International body also emphasized the need for continuous capacity building for media practitioners and other stakeholders to ensure that their reports use the right terminologies.
Austin Erameh, the National Project Coordinator of the ILOFAIRWAY programme in Nigeria stated this in Abuja at a two-day “National Stakeholders Training and Learning Session for ILO’s Stakeholders Community of Practice on Effective Labour Migration Governance.”
The workshop was held within the framework of the ILOFAIRWAY Programme.
The ILO FAIRWAY project in the last four years has contributed in strengthening the capacity of media practitioners, trade unions and civil society organisations in the migration governance in Nigeria.
“Within this programme, the ILO has continued to contribute to strengthening the landscape, especially in the policy area, as well as our frameworks to improve the governance and management of labour migration in Nigeria, as well as contributing to strengthening the stakeholders’ capacities of being able to engage more effectively,” Erameh said.
Erameh spoke on behalf of Ms Venessa Phala, the ILO Country Director of the Abuja Office.
Under the FAIRWAY programme, the ILO has developed a media toolkit for media practitioners and has also provided technical assistance to the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) that led to the development of a trade union information guide on return and reintegration and a Migrant Recruitment Advisor(MRA).
He, however, said there is a need to put these tools and numerous others into use to help improve the migration governance.
He said, “we do not fall short of having adequate frameworks in place but where the gaps lies is with regards to the effective implementation and use of those frameworks, and that’s what the ILO contributes to strengthening, to ensure that those frameworks that have been developed are applicable and effectively used across the labour migration landscape.”
Our correspondent reports that in recent times, there has been increased call for stakeholders in the migration governance space to improve collaborative effort to defend rights of migrant workers
James Eustance of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) while speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the workshop said collaboration is key to achieving a better protection of the rights of migrant workers.
He said, “My take from this programme is that no one organisation can do it alone. To be effective in the labour migration governance we need collaboration, particularly with the Media and other progressive organisations in the campaign for the protection of the human and labour rights of migrant workers”
Also speaking to journalists, Dr Emeka Obiezu who facilitated the training said migration is a human phenomenon that cannot be stopped, but said there is need to ensure that those who seek to migrate do so in an orderly manner.
He said, “We cannot stop migration. We don’t attempt to stop migration. Our effort is to provide relevant information for people who want to JAPA (migrate) to find it easy to do so. And to hold our government accountable, to make the conditions of living and working is conducive at home so that people will see migration as a choice and not a necessity.
“And I believe that if we continue to tread on the path we have set through this project, we’ll be able to inform policymakers from our spaces of engagement on these realities. One, we should not for any reason blackmail those who would want to leave. It is their right to leave if they think they are no longer comfortable here. But for those who have the responsibility to put things right, they should also take the onus of responding and effectively to provide a good environment that enables people to decide to live here or to decide to leave here.”
