Desk Report: Expatriates welfare and overseas employment ministry never took the initiative to ensure safe and orderly migration of workers from Bangladesh as required by the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, better known as GCM, reports The New Age.
Geneva based International Organization for Migration, in short IOM, provides secretarial service to the GCM.
On behalf of Bangladesh, foreign ministry interacted with the GCM at the international level in last two years keeping the EWOE Ministry out of the negotiations, EWOE Ministry officials told New Age.
Participating in the 2016 UN General Assembly session heads of state and government for the first time discussed the migration issue and agreed to launch the global compact.
The GCM is expected to be adopted at the coming meeting of the Global Forum on Migration and Development, in short GFMD, in Marrakesh, Morocco in December.
Replying to a question, EWOE Ministry joint secretary for mission and welfare Nasreen Jahan told New Age on Monday, ‘Nobody in our ministry currently handles GCM issues as the issues are exclusively handled by the ministry of foreign affairs.’
Migration rights campaigners said that absence of EWOE ministry from the GCM process reflected sheer negligence of the government to protect the rights of the migrant workers as this ministry was responsible for ensuring safe and orderly migration.
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