In his capacity as the Seychelles Member of the Pan-African Parliament Committee on Trade, Customs and Immigration Matters, Hon. Wavel Woodcock attended the Inter-Regional Parliamentarians Capacity Building Training Workshop on Labour Migration Governance from the 7th to the 8th of May in Windhoek, Namibia. During this workshop, Hon. Woodcock was representing the Chairperson of the Committee on Trade, Customs, and Immigration Matters Hon. John Bideri.
Hon. Woodcock delivered opening remarks, on behalf of Chairperson Hon. Bideri, remarking that, “As representatives of the African people, we are expected to focus on strategies to implement appropriate migration policies to ensure protection for migrant workers. In so doing, we would have laid one of the indispensable foundations for achieving our noble goals”. The main purpose of the capacity-building training was to contribute to Recommendations 35-36 of the Communique of the 8th Pan African Forum on Migration (PAFoM8)- “The Gaborone Call for Action”.
The workshop included discussions ranging from the role of Parliaments in supporting a coordinated multilateral response to rights-based and gender-responsive labour migration governance in Africa; Enhancing Inter-Regional Parliaments cooperation with insights and reflections from (PAFoM8) Recommendations; the global and regional context of international migration, amongst others.
A topic of significance was that of the protection of the human and labour rights of migrants, which encapsulated a dialogue on a more developed level of regional cooperation on labour migration governance to directly address trafficking and smuggling, fair and ethical recruitment, and the implementation of migrant Welfare Programmes.
