Towards Dignified Mobility: Africa’s Landmark Push for Labour Migration Law
Hon. John B. Bideri, Chairperson of the PAP Committee
Introduction: Turning Migration Turmoil into Rights
In a continent-wide effort to transform chaotic and exploitative labour migration into a rights-based system, the African Union (AU), in collaboration with regional blocs and trade unions, is drafting its first comprehensive Labour Migration Law. The aim is clear: to protect the dignity and rights of African workers on the move; from the streets of Accra to the construction sites of Dubai.
This legislative effort is not just overdue; it’s urgent. Too many migrant workers face exploitation at every stage of the journey: recruitment, transit, employment, and even return. A harmonised legal framework can help move from fragmented protections to continental solidarity.
Why Africa Must Act
Labour migration in Africa is defined by contradiction: it sustains economies through remittances, yet undermines livelihoods through exploitation and state neglect.
Migrants often travel through unregulated recruitment agencies, leading to debt bondage and abuse.
Skills drain affects core sectors like health and education, with few systems for skills recognition or reintegration.
Social protections such as insurance, pensions, or labour inspections are rare or absent abroad.
National laws often conflict, leaving workers caught between bureaucratic indifference and legal invisibility.
The absence of enforceable rights has led to rising cases of wage theft, detention, sexual violence, and unsafe work conditions, particularly in Gulf countries and across North Africa.
The Draft Law: Goals and Key Features
The AU-led draft aims to establish a common legal framework for migration governance, guided by:
Safe, orderly, and regular migration as a right, not a privilege.
Enforcement of migrant workers’ rights, regardless of legal status.
Creation of skills recognition systems across regions.
Protection from unethical recruitment, trafficking, and abuse.
Gender-sensitive, inclusive policy design.
Inter-state cooperation and labour mobility corridors in East, West, and Southern Africa.
This framework complements existing continental protocols such as the AU Free Movement Protocol and ECOWAS Labour Migration Strategy, and is being shaped through tripartite consultations; governments, employers, and trade unions in countries like Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Somalia.
Anchoring the Law in ILO Standards
The proposed African Labour Migration Law is deeply informed by core ILO conventions, which establish a rights-based foundation for migrant labour:
ILO Convention 87: Ensures freedom of association, giving migrant workers the right to form and join trade unions.
ILO Convention 98: Protects the right to organise and bargain collectively, ensuring that migrants can negotiate fair wages and working conditions.
ILO Convention 97: Demands equal treatment for migrant workers regarding pay, housing, and access to justice.
ILO Convention 143: Focuses on irregular migration and rights protection, urging states to criminalise exploitation while upholding human rights.
ILO’s Multilateral Framework on Labour Migration (2006) provides best practices on recruitment, return, skills development, and migrant participation in decision-making.
These instruments set a powerful precedent: migration must be governed by justice, not utility.
Unions at the Forefront
Labour unions have demanded not just inclusion, but leadership in shaping migration policy:
ITUC-Africa has called for the inclusion of migrant worker voices in tripartite structures and regional policy planning.
COTU (Kenya), NOTU (Uganda), and TUCTA (Tanzania) have raised alarms about domestic workers in the Middle East, demanding government-to-government agreements that centre rights over remittances.
NUPAWU (Uganda) has advocated for migrant agricultural workers, especially women, to be included in the protections outlined in the upcoming law.
Their core message is clear: You cannot legislate justice without those directly affected at the table.
Power Relations: Who Benefits? Who Decides?
Governments often treat migration as an economic tool, sending workers abroad to relieve domestic unemployment and attract remittances. But this leaves workers vulnerable to state neglect, corporate abuse, and diplomatic silence.
Meanwhile, private recruitment agencies profit off opaque processes, and destination countries extract cheap labour while evading accountability. This law, if enforced, could rebalance power in favour of workers.
But only if unions and civil society keep up the pressure.
What Can Be Done
To realise the promise of this law, several steps are critical:
Ratify and implement ILO conventions 87, 97, 98, and 143.
Establish regional oversight mechanisms, including a continental complaints registry and independent labour inspectors.
Formalise pre-departure training and education for migrants—run by unions and public bodies, not private agencies.
Create enforceable bilateral labour agreements that hold both origin and destination countries accountable.
Build union-to-union solidarity networks, especially between African and Gulf region unions, to support migrants abroad.
Conclusion: Migration with Rights, Not Regret
The draft African Labour Migration Law is more than a policy. it is a potential continental milestone for human rights and labour justice. But laws on paper mean little without enforcement, participation, and grassroots pressure.
For migrant workers to move with dignity, Africa must legislate not just mobility, but equity, safety, and worker voice. The law must answer the call that migrant workers have made for years: “We are not commodities. We are people. Respect our rights.”
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