1.5 million S. Asian workers migrate every year: ILO

DHAKA: More than 1.5 million South Asian workers are estimated to migrate every year, many of them destined for the Gulf region to perform construction, maintenance and other service jobs, said the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

For protection of the soaring number of the migrant workers from South Asia, a two-day regional symposium was held here yesterday. It will also be held today, private news agency UNB reported on Monday quoting ILO sources.

The symposium on ‘Deployment of Workers Overseas: A Shared Responsibility’ is jointly organised by ILO and the Ministry of Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment of Bangladesh.

Representatives of Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea and Sri Lanka are participating in the symposium.

ILO says counting only those who go through regular channels, more than 200,000 workers are estimated every year from each of Sri Lanka and Pakistan and many more from Bangladesh and India.

The symposium discussed recruitment policies and cooperation mechanism between origin and destination countries and provided avenue for exchange of best practices on the preparation of workers for foreign employment and provision of on-site services and monitoring.

In 2007, remittances to the region were estimated by the World Bank to have exceeded US $ 40 billion. Of this, India accounted for US $ 27 billion, Bangladesh US $ 6.4 billion, Pakistan US $ 6.1 billion, Sri Lanka US $ 2.7 billion and Nepal US $ 1.6 billion. Xinhua