International trade has enormous potential to stimulate economic growth and reduce poverty
Informal cross-border trade is currently the main factor that links producers to international markets.
In this context, cross-border trade has a function that has become very important in connecting areas with food surplus to scarcity areas, and an increasing concentration of people developing various activities in the villages and towns near borders.
It mainly depends on how the stakeholders who are generally migrants are treated and the difficulties they face when crossing or settle within these borders.
Cross-border exchange is the main source of income for a large number of unofficial traders, mostly poor women and youths who transport goods between borders.
In this area, the stakeholders encounter many difficulties such as harassment, physical abuse, financial constraints and concealed corruption.
The 4th Congress noted:
That StreetNet has invested many years in the fight against precariousness in which workers in the informal economy, street and markets vendors, live in.
That StreetNet has expanded its scope over the past 3 years to other sectors
The informal economy sector also includes other targets which would not escape StreetNet reach.
Acknowledged:
That among these targets, there are migrant workers in cross-border trade,
That these workers often do not have a normalized status and are not covered by any legal provision.
Took the resolution:
That StreetNet should put in place a program to help its affiliates to organize their workers in intra-regional and international trade,
That an awareness campaign be conducted intensively on the definition of migration and the impact of working at the border
Recommended:
That an approach strategy be conducted by StreetNet in countries where there are affiliates to fight for ratification and implementation of Conventions 97 and 143 of the ILO on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers.
That a training and information program should be planned for these workers so they would know they have rights protected by international labor standards by sector of activity of migrants.
Proposed by: CNTS Senegal
Seconded by: KENASVIT Kenya, Khathang Tema Baits’okoli Lesotho, UGSEIN Niger
