THE call last week by the general secretary of the Barbados Workers Union, Senator Sir Roy Trotman, to stop "the exploitation of migrant workers" should resonate in the cabinet of Prime Minister David Thompson and the councils of the umbrella bodies representing the business sector and labour unions.

Since, however, this is more than a problem or challenge for Barbados, the concerns expressed by Sir Roy, a former president of the Caribbean Congress of Labour (CCL), should also engage, as a matter of regional importance, the labour movement, employers organisations and, of course, governments in ALL Caribbean Community states.

Some of the revelations by Sir Roy of the indignities and inhumane treatment suffered by migrant workers have been known for a long time and exposed in sections of the region's media, including by this writer.

What remains quite disturbing about this ugly state of affairs, and not only for undocumented migrants of varying ethnicities, is that there are employers who have fallen into the habit of undermining the reputation of Barbados as a highly rated democratic state, one committed to fundamental human rights and the rule of law.

Sir Roy and the BWU, leaders and officials of other unions, cabinet ministers of the previous BLP as well as the current DLP government cannot all be unaware of reports about not just "unfair" treatment, but moreso the gross disrespect and abuse of basic rights suffered by migrants in this country, for some even to the time of forced departure.

I cannot, however, recall any report of significance in the local media of even a SINGLE case brought against an employer by migrant workers for violating the laws of this country by their degrading conditions of employment.

The violations would include discrimination in payments and intimidation into silence by withholding passports/travel documents and not accounting for monies deducted as National Insurance. Neither have such "employers" shown any interest in assisting those "victimised migrants" to obtain NIS or National ID cards.

Ironically, there is the painful realisation that among the exploited migrants would be those whose child/children were born in Barbados and may now be deprived of citizenship if, at the time of birth, the parents did not qualify as documented migrants -- in accordance with provisions outlined in the government's "Green Paper on Immigration" recently tabled in parliament.

In this region, we have grown up under British colonialism with the reality that continues to prevail in ALL Caricom jurisdictions: the right to citizenship by place of birth.

This will soon be changed, if the framers and decision-makers of the "Green Paper on Immigration" have their way. Will this "change" really happen as proposed?

Some immigrants find it difficult to even obtain a required police 'certificate of character' -- through no fault of their own.

It's certainly time to "stop the exploitation", as called for by Sir Roy, and cut the political sophistry that cannot hide a fundamental human rights problem requiring collective action.

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