Foreign HCWs Make Decisions To Emigrate Based On Information

Michael Clemens, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD), addresses a recent New York Times article on "medical brain drain" in this CGD "Global Development: Views From The Center" blog post, saying the article's approval of "a horrific proposal to put recruiters of health workers on trial in The Hague for crimes against humanity ... is breathtakingly misguided." He continues, "Recruiters do not 'steal' people. They give information to people about jobs those people are qualified for. The professional ambitions of those people have equal value to yours and mine, and those ambitions cannot be realized without information." Clemens says "coercively blocking the unconditional right of a health worker to emigrate -- such as by declaring her to be owned by a government and prosecuting her recruiter at The Hague -- is a crime against humanity," and cites several other articles he has written on the subject (3/12).