Female labour supply, major factor influencing migration

An Expert in Migration Governance from the Ghanaian-German Centre Jobs, Migration and Reintegration (GGC), has said the seemingly many employment avenues for females in the social care and entertainment circles is a major factor influencing female migration.

Madam Alberta Teye said the ‘easy-to-find' employment for ladies in areas such as home care was a primary reason a lot of them migrates, especially to the Gulf States.

Madam Teye made these remarks during a presentation on the “Challenges Encountered by Female Migrants before, during and after Migration and Support Systems for Female Migrants in Ghana” at this year’s Gender Conference 2020 by the GGC.

The event, on the theme: “Exploring Support Systems Available in Ghana Before and After Migration – the Case of Female Migrant Workers” seeks to explore ways in which migrants could be reintegrated into the society.

She said this coupled with a supposedly lucrative remuneration lured many of these migrants to the Gulf States which resulted in most of them been abused, exploited and financial shortchanged by their employers in their destinations.

“In our project, we found out that many of the females migrated to these countries due to a lot of the employment avenues that are in the gender-restricted areas such as home,” she added.

9o, o exploitation in the destination countries were lack of knowledge on migration issues, saying, most of them were not reliably informed and lacked the necessary resources to aid their migration.

“A lot of them faced accommodation challenges, remuneration challenges and health-related risks,” she added.

Madam Regina Bauerochse Barbosa, the Country Director of GIZ, said her outfit had facilitated reintegration process for female migrants in providing them with skills and competence development programmes.

She said this had helped many of them to start enterprises on their own, whereas others had made careers out of the training programmes.

She said despite works of stakeholders, government and civil societies alike, there was still the need to formulate policies on how rightful migration can be enhanced.

“The German government will continue to support the GGC through training of skills and competences development,” she said.

Mr Kizito Ballans, Chief Director at the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, said there was the need to examine labour services and how they meet the needs of migrants.

“The Ministry is instituting measures to ensure migrants who return home are reintegrated into the Ghanaian employment system. The findings and outcome from this conference will also be considered in policy formulation on migration,” he said.