The Nation - February 28, 2012. "Labour exploitation, human trafficking and bondage of migrant workers from Burma continues in Samut Sakhon's shrimp-processing factories and onboard trawlers despite the passing of an anti-human-trafficking law nearly four years ago, said Sompong Srakaew, founder and director of Labour Rights Promotion Network Foundation (LPN)."
Asia one - February 26, 2012."It is not surprising to hear some older Thais speak a Tagalog word or two because there was a time quite a number of Thais went to the Philippines to study in universities."
ABC Radio Australia - February 21,2012. "Traditionally New Zealand's Pacific-born population has been made up mostly of Polynesians, but in the next few decades that's likely to change.
Professor Richard Bedford is a specialist in migration studies, who has been looking at population movements in the Asia-Pacific region since the 1960s.
He says that between now and 2050, Australia and New Zealand can expect much larger numbers of migrants from Melanesian countries.
He says this new wave of Pacific migration is something both countries need to begin preparing for."
The ILO-EU Project on “Economic and Social Empowerment of Migrants, Including Victims of Trafficking Returned from the European Union (EU) and Neighboring Countries” (Thailand and the Philippines) will have a Final Project Conference in Manila, Philippines on 27 March 2012.
The ILO-EU Return and Reintegration Project is scheduled to conduct training-workshops next month for OFW/Migrants’ Desk Officers and/or Public Employment Service Office (PESO) Managers, as well as other relevant officials from the Provincial Governments of Ilocos Sur and La Union, Philippines.
Representatives from the International Labour Organization (ILO) conducted meetings at the Philippine Embassies in Paris and Rome this month to validate the results of the European Union (EU)-funded research that sought to improve service delivery for distressed Filipino and Thai migrant workers.
Huffington Post - February 16,2012. "The environment is already affecting patterns of human migration. On the island of Hatia, along coastal Bangladesh, 22 percent of households have migrated to cities as a coping strategy following tidal surges. But we would be wrong to assume that our only concern should be for the millions of people who might try to leave areas of environmental stress that are affected by hazards such as droughts, floods, water scarcity and land degradation."
Financial Express - February 2012."Overseas job seekers from Bangladesh are exploited at home and abroad in many ways due to non- implementation of UN Convention on migrant workers, said speakers at a seminar."
In these times - February 13, 2012. "The much-hyped “emerging economies” of Asia are supposed to be moving up on the world stage, but the labor migration they’ve set in motion has put the poorest workers on a downward spiral. Wherever migrants clamor for jobs in "more developed" countries, social crisis often follows."
Bangkok Post January 28, 2012. "Two children, together with their mother and a relative were released from the immigration detention centre yesterday in a case human rights workers hope is the start of a more humanitarian policy towards migrants."
Gulf news - January 28, 2012. "There seems to be no end to a woman's miseries, especially if she is uneducated and poor.
The conclusion was drawn after a study undertaken by the Delhi-based Centre for Social Research (CSR) revealed that Indian women below 30 were forced to seek a route to West Asia to work as housemaids and nurses. "
USAID - January 26, 2012. "On December 19, 2011, the day after International Migrants Day, I found myself on a plane from Almaty, Kazakhstan to Dushanbe, Tajikistan, for a business trip. I was surrounded by Tajik laborers returning home to celebrate the New Year. Other than my three colleagues and I, the seats were filled with Tajiks bearing electronics, toys, and other gifts for their families. Had it not been for my ignorance of Tajik or Farsi, I would have struck up a conversation with my neighbor to find out what life was like being separated from one’s family for work. Instead, I reflected on my own family, descendants of immigrants not unlike my fellow passengers."
First Post New Dehli - January 25, 2012. "It is courage which makes Shabnam, 49, carry on with her life at Lal Bagh area in East Delhi. Bulldozers have razed her shanty, thrice, in the last eight years. On all three occasions, she claims, the occupants of 200 odd slums were given two hours to evict. The first demolition taught her a lesson. She never made a pukka structure again. Her shanty, around five feet in height, is made of straw, tin, raxene and asbestos."
The Jakarta Post - January 27, 2012. "Indonesia has become one of the biggest migrant-sending countries in Asia after Sri Lanka and the Philippines (Hugo, 2009). But, are we aware of how many Indonesians are working abroad? No one probably knows the exact answer.
Estimates of the total number of migrant workers vary from 4 million (The Jakarta Post, 2012), 4.1 million (Bank Indonesia, 2011), to 6 million (Kompas, 2011). Meanwhile, the National Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BNP2TKI) only reports very outdated figures of migrant flows for August 2007 and the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry’s website reports deployments from 2007 to 2009."
The Phnom Penh Post - January 24, 2012. "At least nine Cambodian women died last year while performing domestic work in Malaysia. And the grim reality is that, without strong action by the Cambodian and Malaysian governments to rein in exploitative recruitment and employment practices, more lives will be lost in 2012."
