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Chisinau, 27 September 2004 - Representatives of Belarus, Moldova, the Russian Federation and Ukraine meet in Chisinau in Moldova today to address regional questions on the increasing flow of migrant workers across borders, including safeguarding migrants' rights while managing irregular migration.
The two-day meeting and workshop, organized by the Warsaw-based Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the OSCE (OSCE/ODIHR) and International Organization for Migration (IOM), will focus on the challenges Moldova and neighboring countries face as an increasing number of migrants seek job opportunities abroad.
The idea of the workshop is to foster cross-border co-operation between countries of the region on the regulation of labour migration and collection and sharing of migration-related data on a national and regional level.
We hope that this workshop will contribute towards the creation of practical inter-state mechanisms to ensure the effective use of labour force and protection of migrant workers. This would also promote tolerance and the elimination of discrimination against migrants," said Robert Adams, Deputy Head of the OSCE/ODIHR Democratization Section.
"Sound migration policy is built on the best possible information about our labour flows in the region", said Allan Freedman, Chief of Mission, IOM Moldova. "This meeting is about taking an important step towards fully addressing the needs and problems of the regions' migrant workers."
The invitees to the workshop include policy-makers responsible for development of labour migration policies as well as experts from the International Labour Organization, the State University of Moldova, Moscow State University's Center for Demographic Studies, the Danish Immigration Service, OSCE/ODIHR and IOM.
"This is the first workshop on labour migration policy and data management in Chisinau and the large number of participants shows the interest of Moldova's neighboring -countries in finding ways to settle this problem," said Olga Poalelungi, General Director of the Migration Department in Moldova . "We believe this meeting will better facilitate regional cooperation and lead to better management of labour migration data."
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