Experts Thursday stressed the need to collaborate on the promotion of fair and ethical recruitment to ensure decent work and safe migration across South and Southeast Asia.

They were speaking at the two-day meeting of the Thematic Area Working Group (TAWG) of the Colombo Process (CP) on fostering ethical recruitment practices in Dhaka.

CP is a regional consultative process of 12 Asian countries that focuses on the protection of and provision of services to migrant workers and optimising the benefits of organised labour migration for both sending and receiving countries for both migrants and their families.

During the 9th meeting of the TAWG, member states finalised their four-year work plan to further the goals of transforming the recruitment industry from the employee-pay model to an employer-pay model; ensuring informal recruitment actors are encompassed under the regulatory framework and equipping migrant workers with the information necessary for decent work and safe migration.

Read: Bangladesh truly a champion of migration management: IOM

Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Secretary Ahmed Munirus Saleheen said migrant workers remain particularly vulnerable to exploitation, which often starts at recruitment.

Cooperation among different stakeholders at both sending and receiving ends is required to ensure ethical recruitment practices in migration, he added.

Ensuring fair and ethical recruitment is a precondition to ensuring safe, orderly, and regular migration, IOM Bangladesh Chief of Mission Abdusattor Esoev said.

According to the World Migration Report 2022, the number of international migrants has grown from 84 million globally in 1970 to 281 million in 2020, representing 3.6 percent of the world's population.

Migrants contribute with their knowledge, networks, and skills to build stronger, more resilient communities in sending and destination countries.