The Deputy Minister of Employment and Labor Relations, Mr. Bright Wireko-Brobbey, said gender migration plays an important role in formulating appropriate feminist development policies.
This, he said, was essential as many female migrant workers were confined to low-skilled jobs in domestic and care work, hotel and hospitality services and agriculture.
Mr. Wireku-Brobbey made the claim when he spoke at the 4th Annual Gender and Migration Conference in Accra on Wednesday organized by the Ghanaian-German Center for Employment, Migration and Reintegration .
It was organized in partnership with the Ministry of Employment and Labor Relations, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Welfare and the University of Ghana, Center for Migration Studies.
The conference, themed “Rethinking Migration and Feminist Development Policy: Insights from Ghana,” focused on issues related to the root causes of migration, gender power relations, social norms and to models.
According to Mr. Wireku-Brobbey, the government has pursued and enacted gender-sensitive policies to accelerate women’s participation in the labor market.
Some of these policies, Wireku-Brobbey said, include efforts to ratify the ILO Violence and Harassment Convention, efforts to ratify the ILO Maternity Protection Convention, adoption of the Regulations on Labor (Domestic Workers) and Organization of Informal Workers, Economic Units and Enterprises.
Despite these policies, Mr. Wireku-Brobbey lamented the inhumane treatment, abuse and exploitation to which women are subjected as they migrate to greener pastures.
Furthermore, he explained that the inability of female migrant workers to obtain work permits and acquire legal status in low-skilled sectors was a clear indication that many of the policies in place were inconsistent.
Mr. Wireku-Brobbey said that “policies, including gender-sensitive policies, should be carefully formulated to facilitate the integration of women into a changing world of work”.
Joining the program virtually, Commissioner for Refugee Policy and Director for Displacement and Migration at the Federal Ministry for Economic Societies and Development, Dr Elke Lobel, noted that “feminist development policies are inclusive political movements.”
In her view, achieving successful feminist development policies was a collective responsibility.
Dr. Lobel explained that in order to change and transform feminist development policies, it was necessary to pay critical attention to the right resources and representation of migrants, in particular.
She stressed the importance of protecting the human rights of all migrants while commending Ghana for implementing policies in this regard.
The Director of the Center for Migration Studies at the University of Ghana, Professor Mary Boatemaa Setrana, noted that studies had shown that issues such as the gender dynamics of remittances and changes in family ideals had contributed to the inclusion of women in the migration situation in the West. African.
To this end, she implored countries to adopt an intersectional feminist approach to addressing gender and migration issues.
The German Ambassador to Ghana, Mr. Daniel Krull, has deplored the illegal method by which most migrants migrate through the Saharan or Mediterranean Sea.
According to him, the best path to legal migration is through education, information and vocational training.
