By Loretta B Manele

Closely monitoring the treatment of migrant workers at their destination of work along with employer adherence to contract terms and conditions is one of the recommendations from a recent IOM report.

Emmanuel Pitakaka, national project officer from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) spoke about this when IOM launched its “Returned Migrant Workers in Solomon Islands” 2025 report last month.

He outlined factors from the report that supported the above recommendation.

Pitakaka said of all migrant workers from their survey, only 55% of the respondents stated that the terms of their employment agreement were fully upheld by their employers.

On the other hand, the rest reported not receiving the salary contraction due to them, experiencing deductions that exceed contract terms, were provided with accommodation that didn’t meet the description in their contract and were assigned work that didn’t align with their contracts.

Pitakaka said another reason for this recommendation is that almost a third of respondents experienced a change to the terms and conditions of their employment while at the destination.

He mentioned that 42% of workers were not consulted by their employer prior to when these contracts or changes being made.

Pitakaka also stated that when workers were consulted, close to half of them felt they could not refuse to receive any incentive by their employers.

He stressed that there are more justifications for this recommendation.

Pitakaka said almost a third of respondents experienced a change.

This change is that 41% of them reported being treated unfairly at work, 50% of all workers reported overpriced accommodation, 13% reported overcrowded accommodation and nearly 1 in 10 workers reported unpaid hours as well as discrimination based on ethnicity, racism and unexpected wage deductions.

Pitakaka noted that only 15% of workers were offered private accommodation in their contract destination and only half of all respondents did not feel that the accommodation arrangements ensured their privacy.

The above were reasons why it is recommended that there is close monitoring of how migrant workers are being treated at their destination of work and of their employers adherence to the contract terms and conditions.

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