Relief Applications

ILO - Migrant Recruitment Advisor Chatbot

The ILO's Migrant Recruitment Advisor helps migrant workers avoid fraudulent recruitment and make informed choices. We built a cross-platform chatbot in 8 languages, ready for Telegram and Line, that lets users fill in review and complaint forms and navigate a visual menu of origin and destination countries, with a large language model to improve its answers.

Client
ILO
When
Nov 2023–Jun 2026
Team
3+
Services
App development, AI tools
Technologies
Microsoft Bot Builder SDK, Azure, LUIS.ai, Node.js, ChatGPT, Docker
Industry
Fundamental Labour Rights
SDGs
8. Decent work and economic growth, 10. Reduced inequalities, 12. Responsible consumption and production
Client website
ilo.org

In some countries, economic challenges force many people to migrate to new destinations with the goal of improving their quality of life. However, this decision is not always straightforward, as individuals often encounter difficulties, such as falling victim to fraudulent employment agencies. Therefore, it is essential for them to receive guidance on how to navigate and avoid such situations.

In 2018 International Labour Organization launched Migration Recruitment Advisor (MRA). This initiative aims to fight against abuse and fraud which migrants often are exposed to when searching for job opportunities abroad. Therefore it seeks to help migrant workers to make critical choices at the time of planning their journey to work in a foreign country. As experience tells, when a worker is recruited fairly, the risk of ending in forced labor is drastically reduced. The platform allows workers to comment on their experiences, rate and review recruitment agencies, and get useful information about their destination country. Governments provided with the list of licensed agencies and a network of trade unions and civil society organizations in all target countries ensure the sustainability of the platform by reaching out to workers and speaking to them about their rights.

In 2020 the organization wanted to move forward in the project and update it to reach a wider audience. Relief Applications’ proposal was a chatbot to enable all the possible functionalities of the web platform through chat services. Now the project continues under the leadership of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the world's largest trade union federation, with a primary focus on defending workers' rights and interests through trade unions. In this new phase, the ITUC asked Relief Applications to enhance the chatbot to Increase accessibility to a wider range of users as well as to expand compatibility to a wider range of platforms. To achieve these goals, Relief Applications developed a chatbot integrated with a Large Language Model (LLM) like chatGPT. This facilitates communication with individuals across various languages, countries, and platforms (WhatsApp and Facebook). The flow designed for this chatbot allows users to access legal information, tips, and reviews about different agencies and countries. Lastly, a data collection mechanism has been implemented to identify the primary issues faced by users at the moment of the recruitment.

The challenge

  • Facilitate the access to the platform
  • Improve accessibility to review and complaints forms
  • Easy access to each destination contents
  • Increase accessibility to a wider range of users
  • Expand compatibility to a wider range of platforms
  • Gather the main challenges of migrant workers
  • Integrate Large Language Model (LLM) to improve user interactions

What we did

  • Ready to use in Telegram and Line
  • Now is possible to fill any form with the chatbot, replying to each question and section
  • The user can navigate through a visual menu with countries of origin and destination inside the chatbot
  • Create a chatbot cross-platform supporting 8 languages
  • Questionnaire that allows users to share their experiences and advise
  • Utilize prompt engineering to instruct ChatGPT in enhancing the quality of its responses and establish boundaries to mitigate any tendencies towards hallucinatory outputs.

Relief Applications has been a great partner throughout the design, development, and continuous improvement of the Migrant Recruitment Advisor chatbot. Their professionalism, responsiveness, and technical expertise have been instrumental in helping us create an accessible and user-friendly tool that supports migrant workers with reliable information about their rights throughout the recruitment process.

Ira Rachmawati, Human and Trade Union Rights Officer at the ITUC Global
Migrant Recruitment Advisor Chatbot, ILO: screen 1 Migrant Recruitment Advisor Chatbot, ILO: screen 2 Migrant Recruitment Advisor Chatbot, ILO: screen 3

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