The ILO’s Ship to Shore Rights South East Asia programme organized a consultation workshop to review pre-departure training materials with 46 tripartite plus stakeholders (13 women) on 28 February 2024. The training materials are expected to be finalized in March and rolled out to recruitment agencies.
Despite being a land-locked country, a considerable share of Lao migrant workers are employed in fisheries-related work in Thailand. In particular, the seafood processing sector is considered to be a meaningful sector of work for Lao women who have limited domestic labour market opportunities due to restrictive social norms and the highly gendered division of labour within the country.
Although delivery of pre-departure training is already mandated to employment service enterprises before sending Lao migrant workers abroad, the current training materials are not country or sector-specific. The workshop provided detailed stakeholder feedback on a new tailored training curricula for Lao migrant workers planning to work in Thailand’s fishing and seafood processing sectors.
