1. The transitional justice mechanism will address grievances,
claims and labour disputes of repatriated workers who have
lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic. That the mechanism
needs to be expedited, accessible, affordable, and efficient.
2. It should be a priority to guarantee that all repatriated
workers with legitimate claims are able to access justice and
some kind of compensation.
3. While it must be of the utmost importance to ensure that
cases are resolved as soon as possible, without delay,
especially in cases involving labour disputes, safeguards must
be put in place to ensure that migrants are able to pursue their
cases post return. Access to legal advice and support,
facilitating power of attorney procedures, and easing
requirements for in-person testimony and court appearance or
appearance in front of a tribunal/grievance mechanism are
paramount.
4. States should require employers and businesses to keep all
employment records, including payroll, employee lists, and
hours worked and allow workers to take copies of their records
with them.
If we are to ‘Build Back Better’, we cannot continue to turn a
blind eye to the issue of wage theft that has been persistent
across migration corridors for years, and will be unprecedented
in the case of repatriated migrant workers in the COVID 19
pandemic.
Many migrant workers have reconciled to the situation of wage
theft in the form of unfair or unpaid wages for months and
years before the COVID 19 pandemic. They have accepted it
as their fate and refrained from complaining lest they lose their
jobs, or, worse still, live with the fear of being made
undocumented.
Each year, millions of dollars are lost in potential remittances
due to wage theft, even as countries of origin continue to
explore new markets for deployment of migrant workers while
countries of destination thrive on cheap and exploitable
migrant labour.
Repatriation of migrant workers without due diligence by states
in the time of the COVID 19 pandemic will only serve to leave
unattended the injustices that migrant workers bear, exonerate
employers and perpetrators of violence against migrant
workers, and wipe away all records of legitimate claims and
grievances.
The millions who are and will be repatriated will impact the
development trajectory of families for whom a single migrant
worker is a source of hope for a better future for generations to
come. This dream, this resilience of the migrant’s journey must
not be stifled as the COVID 19 pandemic runs its course.
If unaddressed at this time, we run the risk of forever delinking
the patterns that connect migration to development, as the