Fair Recruitment in the agricultural sector in Mexico
The ILO and the Agricultural Association for Social Responsibility (AHIFORES) formalize their collaboration to implement Fair Recruitment in the agricultural sector in Mexico
On February 27th 2018, the ILO and the Alianza Hortofrutícola Internacional para el Fomento a la Responsabilidad Social (AHIFORES) signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Fair Recruitment and Labor Migration.
AHIFORES is a non-profit agricultural association that since it’s constitution in 2015 has brought together 80% of all agricultural exporters in Mexico in an effort to promote good practices and social responsibility.
AHIFORES has identified key issues in which they have focused their efforts and strategies, being one of them the recruitment of agricultural workers. As a result, ILO and AHIFORES have started a collaboration to support the adoption of the ILO General Principles and Guidelines for Fair Recruitment among its members as one of the activities being carried out by REFRAME project. In order to do so, the ILO is developing a Fair Recruitment Toolkit that will provide practical tools to the sector to ensure the implementation of fair recruitment practices and their integration throughout their management systems.
The reach of fair recruitment issues is broadening within AHIFORES. During the Third International AHIFORES Forum for 2019, which took place in the city of León, Guanajuato in Mexico on February 27th and 28th, fair recruitment, including the ILO Fair Recruitment Initiative through REFRAME project, had a particularly central role. Not only was the ILO requested to give a fair recruitment workshop in a format that was new to the Forum, but it also signed a MoU with AHIFORES on Labor Migration and Fair Recruitment as well as participated in special panels on the topic.
The focus that was given to fair recruitment in this year’s Forum can be seen as the result of the strong collaboration between AHIFORES and the ILO within the framework of REFRAME project. The Fair Recruitment Toolkit will be developed through a participatory process that will involve producers to ensure coherence and ownership of the different tools that will be included.
The different events held during last February Forum, demonstrate how fair recruitment is furthering within sectors and the key role that the ILO plays in it.
The ILO supports local dialogue and gives training on Fair Recruitment and Labour Migration to municipal offices that provide services for migrant workers.
As part of its activities under REFRAME in Mexico, the ILO is working in the southern border state of Chiapas and northern border state of Baja California where it supports local dialogue processes on fair recruitment and labour migration to facilitate inter-institutional coordination among local institutions that provide different services for migrants. These institutions include the local public employment service, the social security institute, and housing authorities with government managed migrant resource centres or equivalents.
In addition, the ILO provides training to these Offices for the Attention of Migrants (OAM) in both states in order to strengthen their capacity, to inform and channel migrant workers when labour issues arise, and to identify potential recruitment violations in the cases they manage.