As part of the International Recruitment Integrity System (IRIS) global initiative, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) held a mixed session with virtual and on-site participants on August 13, 2021, on Ethical Recruitment as a Means of Ensuring The Labour Rights of Working People, with an emphasis on Migrant Workers. Members of the National Council of Organized Workers (CONATO for its Spanish acronym), trade union leaders, and members of civil society participated.

IRIS is a global social compliance programme designed by IOM in conjunction with government, private, and civil society partners. It was created to respond to the growing demand from the private sector and governments for ethical recruitment services, in order to contribute to the strengthening of multi-stakeholder actions to promote ethical recruitment and the protection of migrant workers.

The objective of this activity was to train and sensitize union leaders and representatives of organized workers' groups on the fundamental rights of workers, specifically migrant workers.

On behalf of IOM's team in Panama, Ileen Lezcano, Project Operational Assistant, and Marisabel Martin, Senior Monitoring Assistant, presented the global, regional and national context of labour migration and migration governance, as well as the relationship between human rights and migration.

Dayra Campos, Technical Secretary of the National Commission against Trafficking in Persons of the Ministry of Public Security, presented the context of human trafficking and labour exploitation and sexual servitude in Panama. "So far in 2021, the Republic of Panama has declared two convictions, one of 20 years in prison and the other is 23 years, for the crime of trafficking for the purposes of labour exploitation and sexual servitude," Campos said.

The session culminated with the presentation of María Isabel Saravia, Deputy Director of the National Migration Service, on how preventive migration control helps to combat these crimes that seriously violate human rights. For Saravia, "when we talk about preventive migration control and ethical recruitment it sounds distant, but they are related. Panama, within its public policies, has included the migration issue and does not deny the right to social security, regardless of migration status."

Marisol Linero, IOM's Labour Migration Consultant in Panama, organized this session with the intention of demonstrating how Ethical Recruitment can prevent human trafficking, forced labour, and how the commitment of all actors will enable good governance of migration and the economic development of countries.

Since 2020, IOM has been carrying out actions with different social actors to promote ethical recruitment, within the framework of the project Promoting Ethical Recruitment in the Hotel and Tourism Industry, implemented by IOM and funded by the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration of the US Department of State.

For more information, please contact Mayteé Zachrisson, IOM Panama Communications and Media Assistant, at mzachrisson@iom.int