When I first heard the title ‘Illegal Migration and Trafficking in Persons’, I couldn’t see how this involved me … [through my participation] I understood that forced and unpaid overtime, payment below minimum-wage and mistreatment are trafficking issues.
Project: Funded by the European Union Trust Fund North of Africa, the project “Enhancing migration governance through institutional support” is implemented by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) in collaboration with the National Coordinating Committee for Combating and Preventing Illegal Migration and Trafficking in Persons (NCCPIM&TIP). It aims at enhancing the capacities of Egyptian institutions, as well as the exchange of knowledge and expertise towards adequate migration governance.
As part of the capacity-building component with partner institutions, six training courses have been conducted in collaboration with the Ministry of Labor. Four trainings across Egypt (Cairo, Minya and Luxor governorates), offering Egyptian labor inspectors the legal resources needed to perform effective inspections, promote fair recruitment, and prevent undeclared and exploitative labor as active agents of change. Additionally, a workshop with the Spanish Ministry of Labor and Social Economy was organized to exchange knowledge and best practices for combatting illegal migration and related crimes, as well as a training on communication and Training of Trainers (ToT) skills for labor inspectors to relay the knowledge acquired to their colleagues and fellow inspectors.
Mohamed, a labor inspector in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Beni Suef, oversees an industrial area with factories employing laborers of various nationalities. He attended three trainings across Egypt, including a ToT workshop, which proved uniquely useful to him due to the migrants he frequently encounters in his work, many of whom experience severe mistreatment, underpayment and exploitation.
“When I first heard the title ‘Illegal Migration and Trafficking in Persons’, I couldn’t see how this involved me … [through my participation] I understood that forced and unpaid overtime, payment below minimum-wage and mistreatment are trafficking issues.” The combination of case studies from the Spanish experience, as well as personal development through the ToT, strengthened Mohamed’s ability to locate and manage violations to labor laws, as well as confidently and effectively express these insights in awareness efforts, and to his colleagues who did not attend the workshops.
CONMIGO is dedicated to improving migration governance in Egypt, working closely with the NCCPIM&TIP to develop national capacities in order to make migration a driving force of development. Besides Mohamed, the project has reached 100 labor inspectors, and reached over 500 trained beneficiaries on migration across Egypt since its start.