Biden Administration Puts Root Causes of Migration Strategy Into Action

In line with the President Joe Biden’s initiatives to work towards actualizing the migration mitigation strategy, the US Department of Labor will now award upto $20million to support workers’ rights, fight labor abuses in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

This money would be utilized towards elevating workers’ rights and improve working conditions in certain Central American countries. This is all in tune with the Biden-Harris administration’s Root Causes of Migration Strategy.

This funding includes upto $7 million to address child labor, forced labor and other unacceptable conditions of work amongst vulnerable populations in these Central American countries including the indigenous communities and those of African descends as well.

The project intends to fund all related initiatives that would help improve the related communities to come together and collaborate with governments, the private sector and others, to address unacceptable work conditions.

An additional $13million worth of funding opportunities is also on the anvil for announcement, aimed at improving occupational safety and health conditions, access to social protection services and respect for workers’ rights too.

The moot point of the Biden-Harris strategy is to address the fact that only through promoting labor rights and decent work practices can America look at an inclusive economic growth pattern.

Through ILAB, the department will use its mandate to address issues related to labor rights compliance in the region and engage labor, worker organizations, women’s empowerment organizations and other organizations in the U.S., El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to inform future programming.

The region’s challenges include weak labor law enforcement, limited union organization, high levels of informality, historically marginalized populations excluded from workforce and educational opportunities and a population more vulnerable to the risks of labor exploitation, child labor, the coronavirus and natural disasters. ILAB seeks to strengthen global labor standards, enforce trading partners’ labor commitments, promote racial and gender equity, and combat child labor abuses, forced labor and human trafficking.