Work in Freedom

The Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment (MEWOE), The Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA), Bangladesh Employers’ Federation (BEF), National Coordination Council for Workers’ Education (NCCWE) and Association of Recruiting Agents, other government ministries, departments, national and international NGOs and International trade unions as appropriate for achieving the project outputs.

Project objective

Development Objective: to reduce the incidence of trafficking of women and girls from India, Bangladesh and Nepal through economic, social, and legal empowerment.

Immediate objective:

Migrant women and girls are empowered and prevented from being trafficked by:
  • Ensuring decent working conditions at destination
  • Increasing benefits of migration for workers and their families through regular remittances and a reduction of migration costs
  • Enhancing knowledge, skills, and employability of migrant women and education of girls.

Main activities
  • Community outreach programmes to enable potential women migrants to take decisions including financial literacy and rights at work and situations of forced labor and trafficking;
  • Technical support to the Counter Trafficking Committee members on awareness raising for potential migrant workers;
  • Review the existing Vocational & Technical skills training program for female migrant workers;
  • Trainer of Trainers (ToT) to strengthen capacity of instructors of TTC in relation to skills training for domestic and garment workers;
  • Development of Training Materials and training local partners on use of mobile phone as means of enhancing protection and empowerment of migrant workers;
  • Capacity building with trade unions to better understand women’s migration and vulnerability to human trafficking particularly in domestic work and strengthening of domestic workers platform;
  • Sensitization/ awareness raising program with recruiting agencies on ethical recruitment practices, policies, laws and conventions;
  • Support and Develop online recruitment Monitoring and reporting system for Vigilance Task Force;
  • Support MOEWOE in developing action plan for implementing Overseas Employment Policy.
  • Support implementation of the Government’s Action Plan to implement the Anti-Trafficking Act 2012 focusing on the protection of women migrant workers.

Project outcomes

Outcome 1: Potential women migrant workers and their families in source communities are empowered with better awareness, information, and skills

Outcome 2: Recruitment agencies adopt ethical recruitment based on international standards and are subject to improved monitoring and enforcement

Outcome 3: Women migrant workers in domestic work and garment sectors enjoy better collective representation and support services and employers
have grater knowledge of workers’ rights

Outcome 4: Laws and policies are implemented in origin and destination countries that protect rights of migrant workers, especially women

Outcome 5: New and better evidence is available on labour trafficking of women & girls within and from South Asia and on effective preventive measures