UAE, IOM agree to conduct a study on labour recruitment industry

DUBAI, 29th March 2015 (WAM) --- The UAE and the International Organisation for Migration, IOM, have recently signed an agreement to conduct a field study about the labour recruitment industry as per the framework of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue, to develop an understanding of fundamental challenges facing labour sending/receiving countries. As per the agreement, the study will target the labour recruitment industry in the UAE, Kerala (India) and Nepal for one year. Saqr Ghobash, Minister of Labour, and William Lacy Swing, Director-General of the IOM signed the agreement at the Ministry’s office in Dubai in the presence of Omar Al Nuaimi, Assistant Undersecretary of the Ministry’s Policy and Strategy sector. Minister Ghobash said, "The signing of the agreement emanates from the keenness of the UAE to continue its active role in developing procedures with regards to receiving temporary contractual labourers to come and serve in different sectors, while providing them with proper protection. Under the agreements of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue, mechanisms are being developed between participating countries alongside relevant labour international organisations to exchange new ideas and experiences on best practices that will support and strengthen bilateral and regional cooperation efforts and partnerships." He added that the study which is conducted between the UAE, India, and Nepal will culminate in a report that provides a comprehensive analysis of the international labour recruitment industry’s structural features and the inter-relations between its various stakeholders from prospective workers, to sub-agents, to agents, to recruiters, to employers. "The study will also develop a set of recommendations to address the structural flaws within the industry." The two parties also agreed to grant the Indian Institute of Management – Ahmedabad , IIMA, and Zayed University separate non-exclusive licenses to use data generated from their respective activities under the project for educational purposes. For his part, IOM Director-General William Lacy Swing, thanked the United Arab Emirates, the Ministry of Labour and the relevant parties that will contribute actively to the organisation's agenda. Regarding the selection of migration corridors to study, IOM has selected Kerala and Nepal for several reasons. "The main reason was both have sizeable recruitment industries with large numbers of workers going to the Gulf states, and both have well capacitated management studies institutions capable of taking on the research," said Swing. He further explained that migration to the Gulf is more established in Kerala while it has only more recently emerged in Nepal. "Thus the study will allow us to look at potential differences that exist based on the maturity of the recruitment sector in different locations. And so, selecting two corridors will allow for comparisons of similarities and differences that can then shed light more broadly on the likelihoods of similarities and differences between other migration corridors across the (ADD) countries which can also be studied at a later date, however, from a management and financial perspective, selecting two corridors fits within the proposed budget and timeframe for the project." The 18 members of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue (ADD), established in 2008 and currently chaired by Kuwait, include seven labour-receiving countries, namely Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Malaysia, and Kuwait, as well as 11 labour-sending countries including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. Observer states include Japan, Singapore, South Korea. – Emirates News Agency, WAM – http://www.wam.ae/en/news/emirates/1395278548097.html