Andhra Pradesh government has initiated measures to strengthen the rights and entitlements of prospective women workers on safe migration in view of thousands of unskilled women migrating to Gulf countries to work as domestic workers without proper awareness and training to fend for themselves in a strange country.
Not less than 50,000 to 60,000 people from the State go to Gulf countries to work as house maids and for other professional jobs and not many of them are equipped to adjust themselves to the local situations and feel miserable and at times become vulnerable to exploitation by their employers. Majority of these migrant women workers are from East Godavari, West Godavari and Kadapa districts.
Another equally frustrating situation for many of them is their ignorance about the language, culture in Gulf countries, laws and the stringent punishments for even minor offences.
In this background, AP State Skill Development Corporation and UN Women jointly inaugurated a three-day training of trainers course on ‘Gender, Migration, Development: A matter of rights’’ here on Monday. These master trainers, about 30 of them, mainly women were identified by the district authorities in the three districts were deputed to undergo the training programme.
Following this, they will be offered one month online course and then in turn train prospective women migrant workers in their districts.
The training is led by UN Women Training Centre in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic to support the stakeholders in achieving gender equality, women’s empowerment and women’s rights through transformative training and learning, said Aparna Upadhyayula, Deputy CEO, APSSDC.
The APSSDC and the UN Entity for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women also signed a memorandum of understanding to work for ensuring safe migration of prospective women workers and development of State.
Ms. Aparna said the training programme would help the master trainers understand the philosophy behind migration and go through the case studies to understand how it is handled in Sri Lanka, Philippines where governments directly play a role in helping the migrant workers.
As the migrant workers normally came from lower strata of society and mostly school drop outs, it is essential to teach them about appropriate behaviour, train them in life skills such as sending an email, SMS, keeping passport and other documents safe, how to complain to Indian embassy when in distress.
The programme also roped in women, who worked in Gulf to share their experiences with the potential migrants. Representatives of recruitment agencies, civil society organisations and others working on the issue of migration also participated.
In future, the APSSDC, UN Women and Overseas Manpower Company AP will also offer training programme at the district level. This is just the beginning, said K. Lakshmi Narayana, Director of APPSDC.
Training programme will help master trainers understand the philosophy behind migration, says Aparna Upadhyayula, Dy.CEO of APSSDC
Master trainers identified by the district authorities are undergoing training
