Source: The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

ASEAN leaders are not sufficiently committed to implementing the 2007 Cebu Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers, said Migrant Care analyst Wahyu Susilo on Saturday during the ASEAN Summit.

Wahyu said regional leaders have yet to show any intention to adopt the declaration as a tool for protecting ASEAN’s migrant workers.

He further said that at the same time, the ASEAN Committee on Migrant Workers did not show any progress and was too slow in creating a regional instrument that could help on protecting migrant workers.

“I’m sure that the 18th ASEAN Summit will not produce a real agenda on migrant worker protection,” he said, as quoted by kompas.com. He said the Summit had become a regular place for ceremonial social gatherings among regional leaders.

Therefore, he asserted that regional leaders should place the issue of migrant worker protection at the top of their list of priorities. “They should not only treat the summit as a ceremonial meeting or routine social gathering without significant results,” he added.

According to Wahyu, all ASEAN countries actively participate in the process of worker migration and are divided into two categories: senders and recipients.

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