In Benin, a form of collaboration between trade unions and migrant workers has been taking place in recent years. With Dialogue Migration, Anselme Coovi Amoussou, Secretary General of the Confederation of Autonomous Trade Unions of Benin (CSA-Benin), Coordinator of the Multi-Stakeholder Platform on Migration in Benin (PMB) set up in 2019 which is a platform composed of trade unions, NGOs, university researchers, human rights associations, and migrant associations; previously migration focal point for ITUC  Africa  (International Trade Union Confederation), which is the umbrella organization for trade unions across Africa, discusses the different areas of collaboration of its union and its dismemberments with migrant workers in Benin. In this interview, in addition to the situation of migrant workers in Benin, he discusses the changes underway for the betterment of migrant workers, the challenges and perspectives, such as the decentralization of the issue and the adoption of a migration policy document in Benin.

Today, what is the state of the issue of migrant workers in Benin ?

We can take stock of the situation at two levels. This is a theme that is present today in the institutional debate. It is appropriated by the migrants themselves, who understand that they have a certain status that they must try to improve in a country that is not their own. So, these are people who are already organizing themselves within themselves. This is a theme that is all the more present in the official discourse as today Benin is in the process of developing its migration policy document with the involvement of trade unions and others interested in the theme.

In short, we have an inventory that is rather glowing when we look at it from the point of view of the recent past, but also an inventory that requires us to continue to maintain efforts because precisely in terms of respecting the rights of migrants, when we talk about the development of the migrant who came to work in Benin, we still have a long way to go because on a daily basis,  even if Benin is a country that has the reputation of being very hospitable, on a daily basis in professional tasks, in income-generating activities, there are sometimes stigmatizations. When you take certain categories of migrant workers, particularly in the hotel sector, bars and the like, waitresses; rights are quite infringed, there is a lot of frustration, physical violence, sexual violence and so when you look at all this you understand that the situation is not shining on this side and that we must continue the efforts.

I see a third way of taking stock of the situation. This is what appeared to us at the level of the platform as a new perspective for dealing with the migration issue that concerns migrants who live outside, Beninese who are in a situation of migration elsewhere. The official discourse tended to talk only about migrant workers who are here and also to talk a lot about Beninese in the diaspora who have comfortable situations and can therefore send a lot of money to Benin. So, the entire migration policy conducted by Benin looked at this aspect of contribution to development through the financing of families etc. And we tend to forget a little about Beninese migrants who are not in comfortable situations who often live martyrdom. This means, when you look at the migration issue in Benin from this perspective, you understand that there is still a lot of work to be done because these are people who are quite often forgotten. And when you look at the Gulf countries, Kuwait etc., you have Beninese men and women there who are left to want even who have most of the time no official accompaniment from the embassies and consulates that are there, and who are sometimes treated like slaves and who end up resigning themselves to return but morally and mentally demolished. So we had also dug into the migration issue a bit like the officials of Benin and we realized at some point that this category of migrants also deserves our solicitude and since this aspect that we have taken into account. This led us to organize a number of things, let’s say quite interesting at their level. We took out a document.

What is the situation of working women in Benin ?

When you stay in the ranks of migrants, we will say bourgeois between claws, those who are in a formal job who came through a regular migration, quite often there is no difference in treatment as such. But we know that the vast majority are found in the informal economy. I give you the case of waitresses, mostly from Togo. This is a disaster. They live everything and its opposite in fact. There is no salary because what is given cannot be called wages. They have no social security, they have practically no rights; when the employer decides to fire them, they go. Sometimes there are cooking rights to start working. They live in deplorable conditions. Sometimes they are crammed into small rooms where there are several. And as soon as the boss decides that you can no longer work, or you are blamed for something, even a minor thing, you leave. There was a case of a Togolese guard of a bar where the Beninese employer suspected that he had stolen something, he was beaten to the point where he ended up in the hospital bleeding, and this is quite common. When you now consider the situation of men, you know the situation of the livestock sellers of Sèmè, that we decided to move them to Zè without any servicing of the estate and we came to dislodge them on December 23 or 24 before the end of year 2022 celebration. Despite all our efforts, we ran to the minister in charge, we went to the prefect of Ouémé, but it did not work.

Now, what is positive is that they are also organizing. When you take for example the Union of Nationals of the Economic Community of West African States (UR-ECOWAS) which is the structure with which we work the most. Within them they have the component of women who are very active, whose leaders often work with us, feel really part of the platform. These are people who are really promoting the platform because they have noticed that there are a number of positive things that have been done.

Reality is that the situation is not as dramatic as it is in the Gulf countries for our Beninese women. But in Benin they are not so well off that we can say that we are satisfied with their situation.

Do they have expectations of trade union organizations like you that deal with their situations?

Today, yes! They had no expectation to speak in general. They had no expectations of the unions because they looked at the unions as the thing of the nationals. And it is true that we as well, at the beginning, when you look in our old texts, the fundamental texts of the union we have always put: to be of Beninese nationality. Without really thinking badly, this is what you read in most union constitutions. But since we started by addressing this theme we understood. We as a confederation today ensure that in the texts of our affiliated rank-and-file unions that there is no such reference; It’s hard working! And we had a Chadian who was a member of a union of the CSA-Benin for example. So, before that it was that. There is this distance between them and us. But today, there is this proximity. When they have a problem, they call. Problem with the police, problem with this or with a neighbor, they call. They ask for help, even if they do not always have all the help they want, the desired quality, at least this reflex has begun to take hold. Sometimes they come to our rooms for meetings of migrant associations, whereas before it was not possible. Today they know that at the labor exchange, they have a space that they can come and solicit. We have a center for the reception, listening and orientation of workers here. It has been two years since we opened this office. Since last year, we started to do the permanence, we do not have the resources to have it open full time. And we open every morning, 5 days of the week. Sometimes they come with concerns that are not ours, but since they come, we consider it a positive thing. Little by little the center begins to be known and when they have small problems, a bullying that they feel, they challenge us.

What does the opening of this center bring to their integration and situations?

It brings a lot. They have year-end gatherings or community stuff. They invite the platform to come and commune with them, to communicate with them. This is already important. You know you are better served than by yourself. If we stand up as Beninese to say that we are a platform to support migrants, that we want to organize something to defend them and that they do not come themselves, it is because we are not credible. But today we have this ability to mobilize them quickly for the causes that concern them. All the activities where we need to make a show of force in the eyes of the officials, there are many. You see our large conference room of the labor exchange of nearly 500 seats, it is sometimes filled quite easily, and most of the people are the migrants. Today we have migrant students who are in contact with us, and beyond the UR-ECOWAS we have succeeded today in connecting with the communities: Ivorians, Senegalese, and even Gambians. You see, we didn’t know they were with us. It is through the work we do and this rapprochement that they know that there is something that is there, that they can take advantage of at certain times to be better heard.

Aren’t they reluctant by the fact they are identified as non-nationals ?

No, nothing at all. No problem from that point of view. Because they are at least counting on us, trade unions, since we are in the battle with them. What we have also put in place at the platform level also reassures them, since they are members of the platform’s office. My deputy coordinator is a Senegalese, Lamine Cissé, who is Secretary General of UR-ECOWAS and then in most of our activities we involve the administration, the Ministry of the Interior, the Directorate of Emigration, the Ministry of the Family… We try to involve people and since they see all these people with us, it reassures them that they can help them open doors. They are now an integral part of the platform; let me give you an example: we received an invitation from the Senegalese government, to participate in an activity in Dakar, the person we sent is a Malian. She is Niger-Malian (Coulibaly). And she represented us. She represented the platform in such an activity, so you understand that we do not have this kind of problem with them. In fact, what we are looking for is a little more efficiency so that the problems they bring to us can actually be solved. And then there is the whole aspect of the texts, in particular the agreements and conventions to be ratified, will ensure their application and improvement by integrating other new regulations into the corpora that exist today. This work is an awareness and lobbying work that we are doing with them.

Do you have the impression that they are interested in regularizing their situation in Benin?

Yes! In fact, they knew nothing. Most of them did not know that it was necessary to make papers since in Benin, they do not ask anyone in the street for their residence permit and such. But we have published a booklet entitled Guide d’accueil et d’orientation des travailleurs migrants that we make available to them and in that guide, we have described a little the first reflexes to have as a migrant in Benin, and so today they know. It is true that we have not yet had many cases of people who have decided to regularize, but at least today, they know that it is something they must do. We were contacted once or twice by someone who now has nationality and who had been blocked at a given step and who did not know what to do, and we tried to unblock the situation. From time to time, we have that. But for people who simply live their daily life, their primary concern is not to go and do the paperwork. Because doing papers means spending money, etc. But since migrants in Benin do not have this kind of problem where they are required to have a residence permit, we explain to them what the advantages are. Because I also had an employee that I wanted to declare but the process was blocked because he did not have the work permit. And so, the National Social Security Fund required a certain number of papers that he did not have and therefore the files are blocked until today. It is true that he is no longer together with us on the platform, but these are elements that we make available to them to show them the advantages of regularizing a certain number of situations.

Can we say that the fact that they work mostly in the informal sector is an element that makes them not find the benefit of doing the paperwork ?

I think so! Because on the other hand they would need a certain number of documents to have access to facilities, banks etc … In the informal, they are on their own. But it’s not just them. I remember, a few years ago, I participated in a study on the informal sector in Benin and what I noticed more than anything is that the comrades of the informal sector arrived in such a state of mind that they do not expect anything from the State; they don’t even expect to be disappointed. They have cultivated this spirit that, in any case we have been forgotten, no one takes care of us. I think that informal migrants in Benin must be in this state of mind too.

According to some statistical data, today there is a form of migration of Asians to Benin, according to official data. Are the latter interested in the platform, or put themselves in the proportion of those who could be described as migrants of the bourgeoisie?

Yes, it’s them. So far, we have not yet had to deal with them. We never tried to look at it.

Asians and Indo-Pakistanis. We are not interested in them. We only look at them when they have a problem with an employee. Because quite often, they are in an employer position. They are the ones who have the shops and small outlets in which they employ Beninese or migrants. So, we’ve never looked at their case before and they have never called us. I do not think they have the same problems as others. Those I would call the real migrants.

Those of the sub-region in a way…

They do not have the same problems as those. And even when they are employers, they are employers of their compatriots. You take a Chinese who comes, who works for another Chinese person, so quite often the problems are solved between them.

Today, what are your expectations as a trade union organization for migrant workers?

I won’t talk about waiting, I’ll just talk about challenges for us. It is to strengthen the proximity with them. Because we have started to have some results but we must continue because, as I said, these are people who are now showing a kind of fatalism. They say to themselves in any case, what’s the point? When someone starts saying that, they don’t make the spontaneous gesture of reaching out to others to ask for help because they have no hope for anything. So, it’s up to us to keep that flame alive and make things better between us. Today, we need to expand contact with communities to help them. To help UR-ECOWAS to better structure itself in all departments because they are losing a little momentum today. To continue to appear in their eyes as a useful structure for them, their businesses and that they can continue to attend the center.

What are your challenges and perspectives?

The prospects are that the migration policy document will finally be available.

This document, for example, Benin never had one!

Until then, we don’t have one yet. All the work has been done but it has not yet come into force. It is not yet validated; it has made the whole circuit with the small speed that we know of the administration. Then the latest information we have is that we have to review a number of things in it that are obsolete as of today. But in short, we must sign it by the fact that we have contributed to its development. Even if it is a bad document, at least we will have the advantage of already having a document. Then have more ear from the authorities on migration concerns. Because most of the time it is treated as a fad. The whole world is talking about migration, so are we. The other challenge is the decentralization of the issue of migration. In city halls. We worked a lot with the city halls, with the National Association of Communes of Benin (Ancb). We have worked in town halls such as Djougou, Malanville, Pobè, Cotonou, Savalou, and what we have noticed is that the issue of migration is not one of the priorities of the municipalities. This is brand new for many municipalities. With the help of the Fondation Friedrich Ebert, and the Ancb we have started a work that we will complete this year. Make an advocacy document for the migration issue to be included in local development programming documents, and it has progressed well; we will validate the document and we will hope that … this is one of our biggest challenges, because when migrants from Benin in difficulty return, it is because they go to their localities, and there they have to deal directly with the commune, the district, the head of the district and they have no answer most of the time. And migration can be a source of nuisance or a source of happiness. What should city halls do to capture the full benefits of migration? And if people don’t bring it up as an essential issue during their sessions, you understand that there will never be anything. Our challenge is to make it a topic of discussion within the municipalities so that little by little, we look at it as one of the priorities that the municipality or the municipal council must deal with.

A word to conclude ?I would say that we need to address the issue of migration in an inclusive way. No one is too much on this theme today because it has so many aspects, the question of foreigners in our country who must feel comfortable. The question of carrying social security coverage, which means, when you have subscribed to insurance in Togo and you return to Benin, is it possible… These are essential aspects that seem a little far from the migrants we work with today. But these are things that need to come back. It is to be essential, by the texts etc. So, we need everyone to fight this battle. When I say everyone, it is civil society, trade unions, political decision-makers, the national assembly, the executive and all those who are in the administration who must deal with this issue. In terms of planning and lobbying, we plan to go to MPs, because there are still ILO conventions  that can be ratified to improve the condition of migrant workers in Benin.