The International Labour Organization (ILO) says outgoing and incoming migrants are increasing within the Nigerian borders.

ILO senior technical specialist on workers’ activities, Abuja Office, Inviolata Chinyangarara, made this known at a two-day consultative workshop on Tuesday in Abuja.

Ms Chinyangarara noted that counting labour migration trends figures were challenging because they could be regular or irregular.

“But ILO statistics also show that the trends are increasing, that is outgoing and income migrants, particularly within the Nigerian borders,” she said.

She said that labour migration was triggered by social, political and economic issues such as climate-induced labour migration, disasters, pandemics and other crises, which provoked people to move.

She, however, noted that the sectors highly hit by migration include health and construction sectors, cross borders traders and domestic service sectors “are highly mobile’’.

She said that there was brain-drain of highly skilled medical personnel, others, leaving the shores of African countries to get better jobs in neighbouring countries.

“That is why the ILO has come up with a global international standard that is protecting and promoting the rights of domestic workers, that is Convention 189,” she said.

Ms Chinyangarara said that ILO was collaborating with the tripartite constituency in Nigeria on issues of decent work and particularly on labour migration governance, to ensure the promotion of rights of migrants, among others.

“We are also going to look at the ECOWAS Protocol on Movement of Goods and Persons. We are also going to look at relevant ILO International Labour Standards.

“It is some of these documents that would then inspire the content in the process for developing the Trade Union Labour Migration Policy,’’ she said.

Ms Chinyangarara stated that the policy had become imperative as migration had become a major challenge in Africa for young men and women as they travelled through irregular processes.

NLC migration officer, James Eustace, said there were two policies that were already frameworks for migration governance in Nigeria, which include the National Policy on Labour Migration adopted by the Federal Executive Council in 2014 and the National Migration Policy adopted in 2015.

“These are all state actors’ policies, but for us it is a clear fact migration is merely driven by employment and labour migrants, forming the bulk of migrants.

“Therefore it is very critical and necessary for trade unions to have a framework that guides trade unions activities in migration governance, hence the decision to hold the workshop,” he said.

(NAN)