Pre-Departure Handbook for Indians migrating to the EU will help in choosing a migration pathway that brings benefits for the migrants, their families and the countries of both origin and destination

Welcome address by Ms. Dagmar Walter, Director, DWT South Asia and India Country Office at the National Launch of the Pre-Departure Handbook for Indians migrating to the EU.

Statement | New Delhi | 11 November 2021
Sh Abaggani Ramu, Joint Secretary, OIA -1, Ministry of External Affairs,
Mr Seppo Nurmi, Deputy Head of Mission, EU Delegation to India and Bhutan,
Representatives from the various state governments,
Distinguished participants,
Ladies and gentlemen.

Namaste and Good Afternoon!

The ILO is pleased to be here, along with the India Centre for Migration – a think tank of the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, for the national launch of a handbook for Indians going to Europe to work.

The Government of India and the European Union endorsed the Common Agenda for Migration and Mobility (CAMM) in 2016 with a commitment to cooperate and have dialogues in the areas of regular and irregular migration, migration and development and international protection issues. The ILO, along with the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) were selected to provide technical assistance to this policy dialogue. And ICM is a local partner in this project.

One of the areas outlined in the CAMM document is related to the development of pre-departure guidance, which is the subject we have gathered here to discuss today. The ILO, being a standard setting organisation of the United Nations, with a mandate to protect migrant workers in its Multilateral Framework for Migrant Workers, notes the importance of “providing information to migrant workers on their rights and assisting them with defending their rights”. The need for pre-departure orientation was also again, more recently, reiterated in the Global Compact for Migration.

The purpose of this pre-departure handbook is to provide information to assist Indian migrant workers and their family members to be better informed and prepared, before going to the European Union. Such information we believe helps in decision-making and choosing a migration pathway that brings benefits for the migrants, their families and the countries of both origin and destination.

Many of you present here today are experts in this area, having been involved in providing information to migrants, increasing awareness amongst family members and communities, and assisting migrants in difficult or vulnerable situations.

Many of you were also present in the pre-drafting stages and provided valuable inputs. We look forward to now hearing your views on how we may widely disseminate this handbook so that it reaches those who could benefit from this information

With these words, I welcome you to the national launch of the pre-departure handbook for Indians going to the European Union. This meeting is hosted by our partner ICM. The handbook will become an additional resource for the NSDC/ MEA pre-departure orientation training and will be made available on the MEA website.

I thank you for joining us today!