New york: Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Ariful Haque Choudhury has called for stronger global cooperation on migration governance, stressing enhanced protection of migrant workers, improved data systems, and collective efforts to combat discrimination and misinformation.
According to Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, the minister made the call while co-chairing Multi-stakeholder Round Table-4 at the International Migration Review Forum at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York on Wednesday. Addressing the forum, Ariful emphasized that migrant workers must be treated as rights-holders, not as ‘disposable labour inputs’. He highlighted the necessity of placing human dignity and rights at the center of global migration governance.
He underscored the importance of generating accurate and disaggregated migration data, strengthening national statistical systems, enhancing inter-agency coordination, and ensuring safeguards for privacy and human rights. The minister suggested that multi-service information centers, digital platforms, and community-based outreach initiatives could play a vital role in providing migrants with timely, reliable, and accessible information at every stage of migration.
Highlighting the vulnerability of workers engaged in domestic, agricultural, and informal sectors, Ariful called for adopting a rights-based approach to protect them from exploitation, abuse, and unsafe working conditions. He also warned against growing anti-migrant narratives driven by xenophobia and misinformation, urging for stronger accountability against hate speech and enhanced digital literacy to counter false and misleading information.
Ariful stressed the need for deeper bilateral, regional, and global cooperation, advocating that migration should be managed through a ‘whole-of-government and whole-of-society’ approach to ensure dignity, protection, and shared prosperity for migrant communities worldwide.