ILO Requests That East African Nations Harmonize Their Labor Legislation

East African nations are being urged by the International Labor Organization to embrace international labor standards and harmonize their migrant labor legislation.

ILO’s East African office gathered government and labor rights experts this week in Zanzibar to press for a shared agenda on implementing the global workers’ organization’s labor standards.

A shared policy on migrant labor, according to the International Labor Organization, can assist protect the workers and guarantee that just the labor needed is accessible while neighboring nations progress toward free movement of labor.

In order to ensure that legal migrant labor is classified uniformly throughout the region, Mr. Wellington Chibebe, Director of the ILO Country Office for the East African region, which includes Tanzania, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda, told the audience that the region must work toward a common policy.

In a speech made public, he stated that stronger migrant worker protection required the formulation and implementation of logical, comprehensive, consistent, and transparent policies in conformity with international labor standards.

To handle labor migration effectively and in a way that benefits everyone, let’s domesticate, ratify, and put into practice the pertinent international labor standards.

Every member state of the East African Community has enacted some labor laws, notably those that forbid child labor and trafficking. However, not all of them, for instance, have minimum wage laws.

Employers have occasionally used the absence of a minimum wage as well as the lack of proper travel documents for workers to pay low salaries.

The ILO gathered the representatives for the Better Regional Migration Management (BRMM) Program on Tuesday and Wednesday. The purpose of the meeting was to address opportunities and issues related to labor migration. It was the first high-level labour migration advisory group (LMAG) for the East and Horn of Africa.

In order to close gaps used by the negative elements, the area should jointly confront the repercussions of labor migration, according to Jamal Kassim Ali, Minister of State in the President’s Office of Zanzibar.

This kind of event was intended to provide a forum for sharing lessons learned about what works among the countries in the larger eastern Africa region, which are all affected by irregular labor legislation.

According to a statement from the National Employment Authority, Kenya “hopes to benefit from this program, which aims to strengthen the capacities of East and Horn of Africa to govern labour migration by implementing evidence-based policies, improving the qualifications and skills of migrant workers, and engaging social partners.”

In addition to representatives from the regional groups IGAD and the EAC, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) Africa, the International Organization of Employers, and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth Development Office, the meeting included state officials, labor union representatives, and employers’ organizations from Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Djibouti.