19 February 2014

Olympic Games turned Blame Games: Responsibility for Abuse of Migrant Workers in Sochi

© Sochi 2014 Olympic Logo

The 2014 Winter Olympics are in full swing. The games, which take place in the Black Sea coastal city of Sochi, should have been a prestige project of huge importance for Russia’s image at home and abroad. Instead, they are turning out to become the most criticized games ever. The controversies surrounding the Sochi games are many: flagrant discrimination against the gay community, forced evictions of homeowners to make way for Olympic venues and infrastructure, environmental destruction of the surrounding land and, of course, the staggering costs of the whole enterprise, totaling an estimated 50 billion dollars. An issue that has received far less media attention is the abuse of migrant workers on whose backs the Olympic sites are built. (more…)

8 September 2013

ILO: Protecting the rights of migrant workers is a shared responsibility

The International Labour Organization has published the paper ‘Protecting the rights of migrant workers: A shared responsibility’. The paper deals with migrant rights using a life cycle approach in the context of temporary migration programmes, and stresses that protection of migrant workers is a shared responsibility between source and destination countries. Actions taken from only one side of the migration process will not prove adequate to ensure protection of migrant workers, and to promote mutual benefits of migration to development. The ILO hopes the paper will serve as a useful tool for governments, employers’ and workers’ organisations and all other stakeholders who are keen to improve protection of their workers abroad, as well as migrant workers in their countries.

Source: ILO | Publications | Protecting the rights of migrant workers: A shared responsibility (2009)