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Development of a tripartite framework for the support and protection of Ethiopian and Somali women domestic migrant workers to the GCC states, Lebanon and Sudan - Midterm Evaluation

eval_number:

2003

eval_url:

https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/eval/2003

lessons_learned:

themes:

theme:

Migration

category:

Conditions of work & equality

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comments:

The Government of Ethiopia, ILO and partners and the MDWs benefited from the re-integration interventions. The process was led by the Government through the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and it involved the regional labour offices (BOLSA) as government project implementers; in the process capacity was built and government decided to review its Foreign Employment Declaration being used for migration management. The ILO and partners also benefited from experience sharing and working together under an emergency situation. Finally, the returnees themselves who benefited from a fairly smooth re-integration process that included employment placement, skills development for self-employment and psycho-social counselling for stressed returnees.

challenges:

Some of the challenges recorded include the rather overwhelming number of returnees within a short period; the need to rapidly mobilize resources from donors and technical support partners; the need to move a large number of returnees to their respective regions/places of origin after the initial reception; the task of finding suitable accommodation and later employment for poorly skilled returnees; the challenge of psycho-social counselling for a substantial number of returnees who faced different kinds of frustration upon arrival home, including unfulfilled expectations of finding their remittances intac

success:

To some extent, project took into account risks of blockage, including continued commitment of all stakeholders; sustained political will of government; collaboration with regional governments on decentralization assured; cooperation with foreign governments on bilateral issues; support by the relevant NGOs, etc. However, risk of policy blockage in terms of ban on migration of unskilled workers in the wake of the mass repatriation of Ethiopian MDWs was not foreseen; this ban has resulted in a significant change of project strategy. However, government is in the process of enacting a new legislation to address this challenge.

context:

With regard to Migrant Domestic Workers (MDWs), Ethiopia has faced some major challenges. The fact that Ethiopia has become one of the major sending countries of MDWs to the Middle Eastern countries and their numbers have greatly increased in recent years could generate a long-term structural impact. Estimates indicate that about 100,000 domestic workers migrated from the country in 2011 using legal channels alone. However, well over 100,000 domestic workers migrate irregularly every year, using the so-called ‘desert route’, or by contracting unregistered private employment agencies (PEAs). Their destination is the Middle East, but recently also Sudan. According to Government sources, nearly 100% of the unskilled migrants are women domestic workers. MDWs in receiving countries are concentrated in less regulated economic occupations where they work excessive number of hours with poor pay; they are also exposed to various forms of human right abuses.

description:

Intended to focus on capacity building for legal migration of DWs, the project has successfully accommodated activities on re-integration, an unforeseen development which the ILO and partners have addressed in a creative manner. The issue of large-scale re-integration of returnees caught the project management unawares as about 163,000 MDWs were repatriated from Saudi Arabia in October 2013. Government with the support by ILO and partners mobilized available resources and moved the project to address the challenge of receiving and re-integrating the returnees. This should serve as an important lesson to all concerned particularly the Government that the phenomenon of migration should be addressed in a comprehensive manner, through appropriate national policy and programme, which development partners might support.

administrative_issues:

The reintegration of MDWs repatriated from Saudi Arabia and the revision of proclamation 632/2009 kept the government very busy, but in turn has stalled some of the project activities due to lack of decisions and directions by the relevant government authorities. The ban on labour migration and the revision of the proclamation also negatively affected some specific result areas of the project (such as training of migrants and awareness raising on migration in general) that were scheduled for implementation in 2014. This accounted for most of the delays in the completion of scheduled project activities in the work plan.

url:

https://webapps.ilo.org/ievaldiscovery/lessons/192450

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location:

country:

Africa - regional

region:

Africa

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eval_title:

Development of a tripartite framework for the support and protection of Ethiopian and Somali women domestic migrant workers to the GCC states, Lebanon and Sudan - Midterm Evaluation