IOM and the Nghe An provincial Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (DOLISA Nghe An) jointly hosted a job introduction workshop in Nghi Quang commune, Nghi Loc District, Nghe An on the afternoon of 16th May. At the workshop, roughly 150 jobseekers were provided with information about opportunities of working abroad which were yielded by employment cooperation between authorities of Nghe An and regional countries. They were also introduced to the newly relocated Migration Resource Centre (MRC) at the Employment Service Centre of Nghe An (ESC) in Vinh city for further guides on safe labour migration. At the end of the event, many participants registered to attend the monthly job transaction forums taking place every 10th and 25th at the ESC Nghe An and to visit MRC is located in the near future.

Previously in the morning of the same day, IOM’s officers had participated in providing counselling services at the MRC Nghe An in a bid to test the centre’s performance and understand the needs of the clients. 11 clients were directly counselled by IOM officers in this session. Through supervising the centre’s operation and the consultation, IOM has gained the preliminary findings of the counselled job seekers who are mostly at the age of 18 – 30, with the highest educational levels being high school, having an interest in finding a well-paid job in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan and standing ready to participate in vocational courses to enhance their skills. Nevertheless, their awareness of human trafficking, labour exploitation or slavery is rather limited so the information provided by the MRC is of much interest.

Given the largest number of people working abroad in Vietnam in recent years, Nghe An is one of the key provinces chosen by the IOM and donors for the implementation of activities against human smuggling and trafficking in persons. Notable among those was the establishment of the Migration Resource Centre at the Employment Service Centre which provides free counselling services on employments abroad for the sake of safe migration.

The job introduction workshop and MRC’s activities are among the major activities under the frameworks of the project “ASEAN-MPACT: Migrant Protection, Assistance, Capacity and Tolerance” undertaken by IOM and funded by the Population, Refugees, and Migration Bureau of the U.S. Department of State (PRM).