African leaders must take migration issues seriously – Prof Lumumba

Former Director of the Kenya School of Law and renowned anti-graft Campaigner Prof Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba has called on African leaders to take urgent steps to overcome bitterness and divisiveness among member states.

This according to him will enable the discovery of collective remedies to tackle the problems of African migrants.

According to him, resolving rancor and acrimony between Africans is a potent force for finding a lasting remedy to migration problems confronting African migrants in theMiddle East and Saudi Arabia.

Speaking via zoom at the African Migration Summit 2021 in Accra, Prof Lumumba said: “It's urgent that African Union and ECOWAS take issues of migration seriously, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo should have a conversation with the current AU Chair to deal with migration matters with all the seriousness it deserves.”

Contributing to the debate, Ghana's Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchway, said migration can only become a good choice if African migrants find decent work, opportunities and standard treatment in the Middle-East.

According to her, decent work must include respect for labour standards, promoting employment status and creating sustainable development.

In a speech read on her behalf by the Director for Consular Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Dr Senalor Yawlui, the former Anyaa Swuotuom Lawmaker said: “there is urgent need to abolish Kafala migrants hiring system of contract signing which is almost servitude. Human rights abuse, urgent engagement with the Middle-East authorities to regulate recruitment agencies whilst tracking down unscrupulous agencies”.

MS Botchway also indicated that steps are being taken to design comprehensive framework for domestic workers in the Golf state in line with Ghana’s Legislative Instrument on decent work. She disclosed that President Akufo-Addo as Chair of ECOWAS Authority of Heads of States and Government will ensure a bilateral platform is established between Africa and the Middle- East to resolve emerging migration challenges facing African migrants.

On her part, Member, AU Advisory Committee on Labour and Migration and Cofounder, Nekotech Centre for Labour Migration Diplomacy H.E Rev Dr Princess A K Ocansey has appealed to African leaders to apply “Nekotech Decent Work Wheel” aimed at resolving emerging challenges of African migrants including abolishing Kafala migrant hiring system of contract signing in the Middle-East.

She noted that the “Nekotech Decent Work Wheel, includes ten keys such as Dialogue and agreement, Awareness, Cooperation, Independence, Safety, Law and Order, Quality Recruitment, Certification and Settlement, Financial Security, Return, and Reintegration.”

Dr. Ocansey also called on African presidents to “clamp down on recruitment agencies which are not licensed whilst creating an enabling environment for licensed ones to operate in the supreme interest of African migrants.”