The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchway has indicated that the government is negotiating with authorities in some countries in the Gulf region such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar to address some of the human rights violations that Ghanaian immigrants face.
In a media encounter on Tuesday, the Minister said, the government will look at the regulation of labour migration agreement and model employment contract to protect Ghanaians.
She said the Ministry will “[be] keeping with its mandate, which is to protect the interest” of Ghanaian migrants.
“[This is to] ensure that their fundamental human rights and dignity are respected,” she said.
She noted that negotiations were also ongoing between Ghana and Kuwait over the same matter.
There have been many harrowing stories about the treatment meted out to Ghanaian immigrant workers in countries in the Gulf states including UAE, Kuwait and Qatar.
In some instances, some of these workers are physically and sexually abused.
Some of the Ghanaian immigrant workers have their passports and mobile phones seized, hence restricted from establishing contact with others or leaving the country without permission from their employers.
In some cases, these Ghanaian immigrant workers are not paid for the services they are employed to render.
The government recently as part of moves to address the problem opened an embassy in the State of Kuwait in 2018.
Despite this move, some unscrupulous persons continue to endanger the lives of desperate youth especially girls by flying them to the Gulf states under the guise of getting them lucrative incomes but end up exposing them to harsh working conditions while making monies off them.
Recently, the officials of the Kotoka International Airport foiled one of such plans when it seized seven women, preventing them from flying to Lebanon among other countries for domestic work.
