By Mohamed Osman
DOHA: The 37th meeting of the GCC undersecretaries at the social affairs ministries started yesterday and ends tomorrow.
In Qatar, the Social Affairs Department is part of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.
The agenda of the meetings includes issues, mainly GCC citizenship, launching studies on sense of belonging, identity and citizenship in the GCC states, studies on people’s disabilities and unified GCC stance on social risks. The meeting is to prepare ground for a meeting of the labour minister later this evening. Until noon today, the undersecretaries will continue their meeting.
The ministers will hold a joint meeting with the undersecretaries tomorrow.
At today’s meeting, the ministers will discuss key issues, including a proposal to ban domestic workers who have violated laws of one GCC state to get employment in another.
The ministers will also review a joint strategy to fight pressures put up by international organisations with regard to domestic workers’ situations, said Saudi Arabia-based news website alsada.com.
This will be the 32nd meeting of the ministers in Doha. The annual report on the situation of employment of GCC citizens will also be taken up for discussion by the ministers.
They will also discuss recruitment policies of their countries with regard to expatriates, alsada.com added. The meeting of the undersecretaries was chaired by Ahmed Nasser Al Nasser, Undersecretary at the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.
He said at internal level, such meetings and exchange of visits have represented opportunities for sharing experiences in successful social projects in the member countries.
The meeting will also discuss coordination between the member countries on issues on table in regional and global meetings. It will review a framework draft about social quality indexes for measuring social services, programmes and activities offered in the area of social care, he added.
The Peninsula
