Tricked and Trapped: Human Trafficking in the Middle East, ‎pdf 4.1 MB

to legally terminate a contract after the probation period, and therefore it is
important to consider revising them in line with international standards.
Mechanisms for setting a minimum wage remain relatively undeveloped in
the Arab region, yet they are essential to overcome asymmetries in bargaining
power or the lack of effective collective bargaining. 3 In the words of the
Minimum Wage Fixing Convention, 1970 (No. 131), one of their main
objectives is to protect “disadvantaged groups of wage earners” against “unduly
low wages”. Governments in the Middle East reiterated their commitment to
set up a study on the establishment of a minimum wage in the region at
the tripartite meeting on wage policies in Amman in 2012. 4 Fixing sectoral
minimum wages for vulnerable workers, that do not discriminate between
nationals and migrant workers, would help protect those workers at the
bottom of the wage distribution from further exploitation.
In putting these measures in place, special attention needs to be paid to
avoiding undervaluation of certain sectors, including domestic work, as there
is the risk that minimum wages will be set systematically lower for femaledominated
sectors than for male-dominated sectors with similar skill profiles. 5
The adoption of minimum wages for all sectors would reduce discrimination
against migrant workers based on national origin, and would also reduce
competition between countries of origin, some of which have sought to retain
their competitive edge in overseas labour markets by failing to regulate the
wages of their migrant workers. It would further avoid compartmentalization,
especially of domestic workers, ensuring that policies are developed on the
basis of a basic package of entitlements for all migrant workers.
In dealing with the labour law deficit pertaining to domestic workers,
governments and social partners can refer to ILO Domestic Workers
Convention, 2011 (No. 189), and the accompanying Recommendation
(No. 201), in developing their own normative framework on domestic work.
Improving working conditions in the sector would have broader ramifications
for greater gender equality, as the ILO estimates there are 2.1 million domestic
workers in the Middle East, and that one in five women workers in the region
are domestic workers. 6 In October 2012 the ILO organized a high-level
regional tripartite conference on decent work for domestic workers, at which
it was agreed with ILO constituents from the region that existing national
protection mechanisms should be expanded to include domestic workers. 7
3
In the region, only Lebanon and Jordan have a statutory wage floor.
4
ILO: Summary and conclusions, Regional tripartite meeting on wage policies in the
Arab countries, convened by the ILO under the patronage of the Minister of Labour of
the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Amman, 17–20 Sep. 2012.
5
ILO: Domestic workers across the world: Global and regional statistics and the extent of
legal protection (Geneva, Jan. 2013), pp. 78–79.
6
Ibid., p. 31.
7
Many of the conference materials can be found at http://www.ilo.org/public/english/
153