By Loretta B Manele
Recruitment costs met by migrant workers is not really aligned with the United Nation’s guidelines on fair and ethical recruitment principles.
Emmanuel Pitakaka, the national project officer for IOM (International Organization for Migration), UN Migration expressed this whilst presenting findings on IOM’s “Returned Migrant Workers in Solomon Islands” January 2025 report at the Heritage Park Hotel yesterday.
He said during their survey they asked migrant workers from Australia, New Zealand and Canada about the types of cost they found to be the most expensive.
Pitakaka stated that the top three answers to this were international travel cost ranking in 1st place followed by medical examination and the cost of applying for a passport.
He highlighted that recruitment costs being met by the workers is in fact not really aligned with UN’s guidance on fair and ethical recruitment principles, which states that recruitment costs should be met by employees and not the workers.
“This is something that I would like to highlight, which is inconsistent with international standards”.
He said when you look at the average cost for travel for Australia, New Zealand and Canada, you would see that the average cost for New Zealand is slightly less than Australia, presumably because workers reported that some employees in New Zealand actually covered half of the transportation costs for workers.
Pitakaka mentioned that when he interviewed one worker who has been to New Zealand, he was told that 50 percent of his airfare was covered by the employer while he met the remaining 50 percent cost.
“So that could be an indicative reason why the average cost is slightly lower in New Zealand, because actually in fact the travel distance is much longer if you travel to New Zealand than Australia, so it should be the other way around, but the figures show the other way”
In relation, Pitakaka said they also looked at the how the migrant workers were able to finance their migration.
“When we look at how migrants finance their migration, the majority of workers reported savings as one source of income to finance their migration followed by advance from employees. Advance from employees is when workers advance costs like travel and visa and these are being deducted when the workers get to the countries of destination”
Pitakaka said the migrants were also asked whether or not they borrowed money to finance their travel and 10 percent indicated that they borrowed money while 94 percent of them said they actually fully repaid their loans.
For feedback, contact: [email protected]
