Parallel Civil Society Meeting to the Colombo Process, 2011
In collaboration with Migrant Forum in Asia- WARBE Development Foundation, the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU), Association for Community Development (ACD) and Ain O Salish Kendro (ASK) has organized the Parallel Civil Society Meeting to the Colombo Process on 17-18 April 2011 in BIAM Meghna Auditorium, Bangladesh. Different foreign delegates also presented at this consultation.
The Regional Consultative Process on the Management of Overseas Employment & Contractual Labour for Countries of Origin – known generally as the Colombo Process – was initiated in 2003, when participants from the main labour sending countries in Asia met in Colombo, Sri Lanka to discuss new patterns of labour migration that have emerged in the region over the last decade.
The parallel civil society meeting to the Colombo Process is a direct follow-up to our initiatives over the previous years in building momentum to raise awareness on the Colombo Process. While civil society participation has been institutionalized at the UN processes as well as in many other fora including the ASEAN process, this is not the case in the Colombo Process. As such, civil society organizations know very little about the Colombo Process even as they recognize its importance as a regional platform for dialogue on labour migration issues. The closed-door nature of the process provides significant impetus for the organization of parallel processes. The aim of this meeting is to further bring awareness to the Colombo Process, and to involve the relevant civil society and non-state actors.
Themes that were addressed included:
- Recent developments in the Arab World
- Labour recruitment practices (a follow-up of the UAE workshop on recruitment)
- Standard contracts by sector (e.g. migrant domestic workers)
- ‘Reference wage’ for migrant workers (follow-up to the Dubai workshop)
- Developments in work on the Kafala system
