Roles of Countries of Origin
While destination countries must rightly bear the responsibility for the protection of migrants within their territory, countries of origin in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) have a crucial role to play in ensuring that their nationals are protected abroad and receive adequate pre-departure and reintegration assistance. This holds true for both documented and undocumented migrants.
MMN believes that governments of countries of origin should work to establish fair and efficient labour migration frameworks (such as formal migration systems and the regulation of recruitment), provide overseas assistance, disseminate information, provide welfare support, and ensure the effective reintegration of migrant returnees. Other key stakeholders, including recruitment agencies, have responsibilities to uphold fair and transparent recruitment standards and practices, as well as to maintain mechanisms to protect workers at all stages of migration.Ā
In previous MMN research, migrant workers in the GMS identified a number of factors in the recruitment and migration processes that make their experience less secure. The following migrant reflections, drawn from various publications published by MMN, suggest a need for different stakeholders in all countries of origin, including government and recruitment agencies, to step up their role in protecting their overseas workers.Ā
Click to expand migrant reflections
Since 2015, MMN has engaged with migrant workers, governments of countries of origin and destination countries, recruitment agencies, and civil society organisations to better understand how migration governance systems and recruitment processes affect migrantsā experiences. Based on the results of these discussions, we develop recommendations that ensure rights-protecting mechanisms in countries of origin respond to migrantsā needs. Learn more about our recommendations below:
- ClickĀ hereĀ to read our latest set of recommendations for governments and recruitment agencies of countries of origin to improve migrant protection mechanisms and access to social protection.
- ClickĀ hereĀ to read MMNās recommendations in response to the role of Mekong governments in protecting their overseas workers during the COVID-19 outbreak.
As part of our advocacy strategy, MMN held two multi-country and multi-stakeholder policy dialogues (in Yangon, Myanmar in 2017 and Phnom Penh, Cambodia in 2019) with the involvement of migrant worker, government, recruitment agency, and civil society representatives in the GMS. These meetings provided a valuable platform for stakeholders in different countries of origin to share best practices and discuss MMN research findings and recommendations. They were successful in eliciting greater commitment from actors of countries of origin to protect their nationals migrating abroad. Learn more about their responses to MMNās initiative below (click photos to expand):
Key Milestones
Phnom Penh, Feb 2019
Hanoi, Jul 2019
Tokyo, Jul 2019
Related Initiatives
MMN launched Phase III of the Roles of Countries of Origin project in 2020, which built on the key findings of the first two phases of the project as well as the growing momentum among stakeholders in countries of origin to enhance migrant protection mechanisms throughout the migration cycle.
During the second stage of the project (2018-2019), MMN conducted case studies with migrants to examine the roles of countries of origin in facilitating migrant workersā access to social protection. One of the findings from these studies was that migrantsā perceptions regarding the roles of countries of origin in facilitating access to social protection change over time. In light of this finding, the objective of the third phase of the project is to better understand how migrantsā perceptions of social protection and the roles of countries of origin change over time and what factors are involved in affecting such change. This study also aims to develop targeted recommendations for relevant stakeholders with the objective of improving migrantsā access to social protection at different stages of migration…
The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on peopleās lives around the world. Migrants in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) are among the most vulnerable to the present upheaval, given their limited access to healthcare, lack of job security and precarious immigration status.
Since the beginning of the outbreak, MMN has taken steps to engage with different stakeholder groups, including governments, recruitment agency associations, CSOs and migrant-supporting groups in the GMS, and migrant communities to jointly develop policy responses and support systems with migrantsā rights and dignity in mind…
Between 2018 and 2019, MMN launched the second phase of the Roles of Countries of Origin project, which built on the successful completion of the projectās first phase.
The second phase of the project focused on the roles played by countries of origin in enabling their citizens to benefit from social protection schemes while abroad and upon return. MMN has been increasingly aware through its ongoing work with migrant communities of the obstacles encountered by migrants enrolling in overseas social security schemes and issues impeding the receipt of benefits owed to them upon return. MMN takes the view that greater attention needs to be devoted to this aspect of the labour migration system.
While much of the discourse on migration governance in the GMS centres on formalising the migration process, a specific focus on facilitating migrantsā access to social protection is needed to enhance the benefits that regularised migration can bring…
MMNās Roles of Countries of Origin Project seeks to protect the rights of migrants throughout the migration process from the perspective of countries of origin.
During the projectās first phase, between April 2015 and May 2017, MMN conducted a comparative study into the labour migration mechanisms of several Southeast Asian countries of origin…
