Empowerment and Rights of Migrants

The Foreign Employer Guarantee Fund (FEGF)  helps protect Filipino migrant workers and supports their repatriation. 

For Overseas Filipino Workers recruited through a government-to-government arrangement, the Administration shall, through relevant guidelines, establish and administer a Foreign Employer’s Guarantee Fund (FEGF) which shall be answerable for the Overseas Filipino Workers’ monetary claims arising from breach of contractual obligations. The same must be included in bilateral agreements on government-to-government hiring.

In collaboration between the Government of Indonesia and the CSOs the program "Migrant Care Village" offers various services to migrant workers and their families, such as information on safe migration, papers, and empowerment programs for migrants and their families.

With regards to Refugees access to labor market, Tanzania has enacted an Act called “The Non Citizen Employment Act and Regulation No1 of 2015”.

There is a provision for the Director of Refugee Services Department, to issue a "Work Permit" and on gratis, to any qualified refugee who secure employment in Tanzania. Currently regulations to this Act are being completed to be able to guide its operation.

In the end of 2016, the Government of Indonesia has enacted the Presidential Decree No. 125 to be an operational guideline in the handling of refugees, especially during emergencies. 

It provides greater clarity regarding the status of an estimated 14,000 asylum seekers and refugees currently residing in Indonesia as they hope to be resettled elsewhere.

The “Migrants’ Pass” has been introduced and is a tool which provide that, upon application, any persons of African descent from neighbouring countries who migrated into the United Republic before 1972 and continues to reside without having a passport or identification from their countries of origin will be granted a Migrant’s Pass, with a very minimal fee of Tshs 10,000/= per year! About 5$!

The New York Declaration laid out a vision for a more predictable and more comprehensive response to these crises, known as the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework, or CRRF. It calls for greater support to refugees and the countries that host them.

Tanzania did in 2014 a joint exercise with IOM Tanzania, under Comprehensive Migration Management Strategy in Tanzania (COMMIST), aimed at register all irregular migrants in the three Western Tanzanian regions of Kigoma, Kagera and Geira. As a pilot project, in two months, 22,282 migrants were registered and given IDs. Awareness-raising and capacity building for immigration officials and regional, district and village authorities will form other key activities in this project.

#rumoursaboutgermany – a new Federal Foreign Office website aims to get the facts out to migrants, making them less susceptible to misinformation spread by human traffickers.

Budapest Process is a good example of cooperation between countries of two regions; Europe and Asia. A successful process, it gathers over 50 countries and more than ten international organisations. It aims to foster dialogue and share best practices in managing migration flows in order to achieve concrete and results-oriented outcomes.

Ghana formally launched a comprehensive National Policy on Migration and an implementation plan in Accra on 5 April 2016 with support from IOM. 

The comprehensive policy will guide the management of the country’s internal, intra-regional and international migration flows. Its aim is to promote the benefits and minimize the costs of internal and international migration through legal means with the rights and security of migrants well respected in order to ensure socio-economic development in Ghana.