Assistance and protection of migrant workers

Strengthening the membership and affiliation of foreign workers remains a structural challenge for most of the employees' unions in the three regions, whose commitment to migration issues is mainly the responsibility of local activists.

The economic and social realities of the countries in the region generally lead migrants to shy away from taking up demands. The fear of reprisals is also a brake on more formal recourse through a trade union or by turning to the public administration. In the event of difficulties, it is mainly associations of nationals of the country of origin that activate community solidarity mechanisms. All the discussions in recent years within the institutions and international organisations have highlighted the difficulty for the actors to access a precarious and excluded population.
To remedy this, the trade union organisations that are members of the RSMMS are coordinating their actions through a network of trade union offices that are experimenting with awareness-raising, reception, care for migrants and the collection of work data in six countries (Senegal, Tunisia, Niger, Mali, Benin, Côte d'Ivoire). These actions, based on the sharing of good practices between trade unions, contribute to enhancing the role of trade unions in the national system of assistance to migrants.