admin
Ivan Zhakata
Herald Correspondent
ZIMBABWE and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) have strengthened their collaboration to reduce human tracking and ensure that people move from one country to another legally.
IOM chief of staff Mr Mohammed Abdiker yesterday met the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare July Moyo to strengthen ties and discuss areas of cooperation in migration.
Minister Moyo said human trafficking was monstrous and they were working with IOM to reduced it.
“We have collaborated against human trafficking it is abominable and we want to work with IOM to make sure that we reduce this,” he said.
“Where there is human trafficking, we want to bring back our people as we have done from the Middle East but the identification of those who are being ill-treated outside Zimbabwe might be the responsibility of IOM. They inform us and we work together.
“We have asked the chief of staff to convey to the director-general that in the SADC region we can collaborate at a regional level. We want labour, business and Government to benefit from IOM because migration is from one country to the other and because of that we need to collaborate at a regional level.”
Minister Moyo said Zimbabwe was collaborating with IOM and they were working on strengthening the ties.
“We receive several migrants who come to Zimbabwe and we send out migrants to other countries both regionally and internationally.
“We have set up centres so that we can educate our people about the dangers and the advantages of migration and these centres are now operating in Harare and Bulawayo with their cooperation. We are also collaborating at the border posts in Beitbridge and Plumtree and we want to deepen that collaboration.
“Over and above that, there is a collaboration which we need to do about policies, migration policies and the legal instruments that we need to get so that at the regional level and domestically we have legal instruments that can protect our people who are migrants and the people who are also migrants coming to Zimbabwe,” said Minister Moyo.
Mr Abdiker said they have come to Zimbabwe to enhance the country’s labour migration policies through the Migrant Resource Centres that they are setting up in the country.
“We are here to work with the Minister on issues of labour migration and how we can enhance Zimbabwe’s labour migration policies, how we can work with Zimbabwe on the Migrant Resource Centres that we are setting up in the country,” he said.
“The Government of Zimbabwe invited me here to join the upcoming SADC Summit. We are stressing, as part of our new strategy, working with our member-states on how we can work on legal pathways for migration to avoid irregular migration, smuggling and trafficking of our citizens in the continent, the region and in Zimbabwe. By legal pathways, we mean people moving from one country to another country legally.”
Online Reporter