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Add to Preferred SourcesDigital migration management platforms can help reduce the cost and time induced by formal recruitment processes, which too often pushes many women and men to migrate through informal, undocumented, and unsafe channels.
When digital management platforms also store important documents – such as work contracts, payment slips or medical certificates – they create a record of agreements, a so-called ‘digital trail’. This can be useful if disputes about contract terms, repayments or other issues arise between a migrant worker and an employer or recruitment agency.
Other good practices that are emerging are the use of digital solutions for managing support services to migrant workers’ throughout the migration cycle, including legal support, welfare assistance, and online training opportunities.
In addition to making the bureaucratic procedures simpler, more affordable and transparent, migrant workers can use digital technology to share knowledge and information. Online networks can provide peer-to-peer assistance to migrant workers and help them to organize.
By using online rating sites and apps, migrant workers can compare recruitment agencies, money transfer operators, and other service providers, which can help migrant workers make informed choices.
Digital financial services can also help migrant workers manage their income and savings, and send money back home whilst avoiding the traditional banking services fee.
Online complaint mechanisms can help migrant workers seek assistance, even when working in remote and isolated places.
The Asia-Pacific is home to more than half of the world’s internet users. Every day around two billion people in the region use the internet, mostly through mobile phones.
However impressive, Asia’s level of connectivity shouldn’t hide the fact that there are major gaps in the region. Gaps in terms of infrastructure, affordable devices, and data plans, as well as digital literacy, need to be bridged to ensure equal access to services that help achieve fair migration.
As digital and online tools become more embedded in everyday lives, the shortfalls of not using them will mount up for vulnerable workers – especially women migrant workers – who are already among the most disadvantaged in terms of access to mobile phones and internet, potentially deepening the gap.
Further challenges include risks related to the spreading of misinformation, unscrupulous online service providers and limited protection of personal data and online privacy.
Management platforms and digital services collect and share data on migrant workers either directly, through member profiles, employment contracts and application forms, or indirectly, through user data and location information collected by the platforms.
Regulating collection, use, and sharing of this data is critical to preserving privacy and the safety of users, whether such platforms are developed and managed by private companies or state actors.
Original source: ILO
Published on 31 October 2018