The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has said that migrant workers send remittances worth $73 billion to their home countries every year, usually from relatively modest earnings.

The global body said that the remittances represent the second biggest international monetary trade flow, exceeded only by petroleum exports.

Director-General of the ILO office, Juan Somavia, who disclosed this, yesterday, during the celebration of this year’s World Migrant Day, said the remittances for many countries represent greater sources of foreign exchange than total foreign direct investment or foreign aid.

Somavia, while describing the migrant workers as unsung heroes of their home-countries, said there are over 20 million migrant workers, immigrants and members of their families across Africa.

He said they were often subjected to abuse and violent attacks.
He said the ILO would soon launch a new project to create a global data bank on “best practices” of anti-discrimination and pro-integration policies and measures.
“Migrant workers provide valuable services with their labour and furnish an often invisible subsidy to the national economies that receive them.
“They work in factories, produce food, provide domestic service and contribute to a wide range of basic needs, often for low wages and with little recognition of the value of their contribution.
“Despite the hardships of migrant life and work, the treatment of migrant workers is often woefully inconsistent with what they deserve as workers and human beings,” Somavia said.