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How to protect labour migrants’ rights and prevent child labour? These issues topped the agenda of a roundtable meeting focusing on working conditions of migrants employed in agriculture in the Almaty region.
The event took place on August 13 and was organized by Kazakhstan’s Labour and Social Protection Ministry together with the Union of Commodity Producers and Exporters. The discussion also brought together trade unionists, employers and experts of non-governmental organizations.
Experts say infringement on rights of migrants employed in tobacco-growing plantations were registered in the Almaty region. Although a quota on migrant workers in agriculture has already been banned in Kazakhstan for two years, residents of neighbouring republics go to Kazakhstan by guest visas and work without any proper documents. Migrants’ children also come with their parents and work on tobacco fields and other agricultural farms.
“Efforts in this direction should focus on several aspects and the main of them is the awareness-raising campaign against child labour among the population in general,” said Nadezhda Sokolova, the deputy chair of the Almaty region’s union of agro-industrial workers.
In the first six months around 5,000 administrative cases were instituted against employers for violation of the labour legislation. According to the statistics, over twelve months around 10,000 such cases against employers are opened in Kazakhstan.
Participants in the roundtable meeting adopted a resolution containing recommendations for stronger efforts aimed at improving working and living conditions of labour migrants and observance of their civil rights.
Source: www.khabar.kz, www.panorama.kz
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