The Portuguese and Mozambican governments recognized on Monday in Lisbon the need to make efforts to guarantee the "full rights" of workers from both countries and to "do more" to "combat illegal networks or situations of vulnerability".

Speaking as part of the signing of a bilateral memorandum on worker mobility at the Portuguese Ministry of Labor, Solidarity and Social Security yesterday, the Portuguese minister, Ana Mendes Godinho, and her Mozambican counterpart, Margarida Adamugi Talapa, stressed the importance of "more" being done "to combat illegal networks or situations of vulnerability for workers who are often left in unacceptable conditions of dependency".

The agreement aims to ensure that "there is a greater connection and rapprochement between the needs of Portuguese companies and the mobility of Mozambican workers, guaranteeing that people come in an appropriate way and [that] all their rights are safeguarded, thus also seeking to promote the real integration of workers in Portugal," said Ana Mendes Godinho.

For her part, Margarida Adamugi Talapa stressed that the memorandum is "yet another instrument for strengthening labor protection for Mozambican workers in Portugal", which "will make it possible to know the terms and conditions under which they are hired, as well as to monitor the exercise of their labor activity".

The agreement, according to Lusa, is framed by the social security agreement that exists between the two countries, which "guarantees", according to the Portuguese minister, that workers, Mozambican or Portuguese, always have their contributory careers safeguarded", regardless of the country where they work.

The operationalization of the agreement involves the joint work of the countries' employment and vocational training institutes, and the governments of Lisbon and Maputo are left with the "struggle", in the words of the Mozambican minister, of ensuring that "employers promote and respect human and labour rights".

To this end, explained Ana Mendes Godinho, "a pivot" will be set up with the Portuguese Authority for Working Conditions, "always available to signal" "any unacceptable, inadmissible situation in which workers' labor rights are not respected," announced Mendes Godinho.

The Portuguese minister guaranteed that it will be the Authority's Inspector General who will be responsible for "intervening immediately so that companies that are flagged, that have a situation of this nature, immediately [stop] being part of this mobility and this identification of workers to work in Portugal".

"Here, too, we have to be ruthless with companies where such situations are detected," Mendes Godinho stressed.

"To this end, what we agreed was that there should be a great deal of coordination so that the [Mozambican] embassy in Lisbon, whenever it learns of any situation of this nature, immediately communicates it to this 'pivot' of the Working Conditions Authority so that there can be an immediate reaction," he added.

The document "concretizes", in a "specific" bilateral agreement, the "principles that were assumed within the framework of the mobility agreement signed by the CPLP countries", the Portuguese minister stressed.

The two leaders also signed a memorandum in the field of cooperation, "with a view to preparing the next action program", in which Portugal undertakes to "reinforce investment in training in Mozambique, believing that true cooperation is also achieved through training and valuing workers," said Ana Mendes Godinho.