CBCI launches portal for migrant workers
The website will be inaugurated on 15 March. it will collect data on those who seek work in another Indian state or abroad. The Labour Office of the Bishops’ Conference and the Workers India Federation are behind the initiative.
New Delhi (AsiaNews) - The Labour Office of Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI) has decided to set up an online portal where migrant workers can register.
"We are happy to announce a new online portal for the management of data on migrants,” said CBCI Labour Office secretary Fr Jaison Vadassery. “It corresponds to our mission to care for the migrant workers of our country” as well as “promote safe migration and ensure social protection for workers who migrate between the Indian states and abroad."
Presented last Friday, the portal is a joint venture with the Workers Federation India (WIF) and will be launched on Wednesday in the presence of CBCI President Card Baselios Cleemis, CBCI Secretary General Mgr Theodore Mascarenhas, and Labour Office President Mgr Oswald Lewis.
The number of Indians moving abroad or to the country’s most developed cities in search of employment is constantly rising. Migrant labour has become increasingly important for the global economy, especially since those who go abroad send remittances to their homeland, to the benefit of both the nation and their families.
Often however, migrants are victims of abuse, mistreatment, violence, inhuman and degrading living conditions, poverty and misery, ignorant of their rights and unable to assert them.
The purpose of the website is to collect data on migrants in order to ensure support and protection for them during their travels and migration at home and abroad.
According to the website, “Migrants’ Data Manager is a web based data management system intended to promote the safe migration of the informal workers into the different parts of the country in view of their livelihood. It will promote the culture of a structured and regulated migration in search of jobs reducing the vulnerability of the both employee and the employers. This will give the facility of tracking of the migrants from origin to destinations.”
Overall, the programme is aimed at building capacity for all the stakeholders in the process of migration in order to achieve better social inclusion of migrant workers and their families at departing and target points.
From a practical standpoint, workers will have to register prior to departure and will receive an identification number. Those who register will be given contact details for WIF centres in their place of destination.
Registration of workers’ movements will enable the WIF network (five national and 14 regional) to track places of destination to provide support and assistance to migrants.
Founded in 2010 and affiliated with the CBCI, WIF aims at developing inclusive workplaces, and offering training and employment initiatives, as well as health services and pastoral care.
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