The government intends to entrench in law a stakeholders’ forum on migration to give it the requisite powers to effectively coordinate migrants in the country.
The Principal Secretary for Immigration and Citizen Services Julius Bitok said the envisaged legislation will also help secure funding for the National Coordination Mechanism on Migration (NCM).
Speaking during a stakeholders’ meeting on the management of migrants in the country, the PS said the envisaged legal framework will be complemented by policies targeting the integration of skilled labour and other resources possessed by migrants into Kenya’s economic development ecosystem.
He said the absence of a legal foundation has handicapped the NCM’s primary role of coordinating migration among state agencies, the UN and development partners despite the forum being in existence for nearly six years.
“For the last six years, NCM has been hanging without a proper legal framework. We are going to create it within the law for it to be able to properly coordinate activities by state departments and across agencies and development partner.”
Citing examples across the world, the PS said Kenya stands to benefit from a deliberate and structured management of the more than a million migrants in the country.
“Many countries have excelled because of how they manage migration. It is not just natural resources which make a country great. It also about the kind of people that a country can attract and its migration management.”
He added that the envisaged migration policy will seek to harness the ‘unique talent, opportunities and resources’ among other assets possessed by migrants.
The government intends to entrench in law a stakeholders’ forum on migration to give it the requisite powers to effectively coordinate migrants in the country.
The NCM which brings together representatives from the ministries of Interior, Foreign Affairs, Labour, Tourism and Gender among others, the UN and other development partners was formed to pool resources and synergise migrant management. It also aims at avoiding costly duplication and wastage of resources.
Speaking at the meeting, Gender PS Veronica Nduva called for better protection of migrant women and children saying they were more vulnerable to sexual exploitation and other forms of violence.
The meeting was also attended by Tourism Principal Secretary John Ololtuaa, his ASAL counterpart Idris Dakota and Mohammed Hassan who is a member of the President Council of Economic Affairs.
