In the Churu city of Rajasthan, India, a family of 10 is desperately worried. Six years ago, Yousuf Ali*, the third of eight siblings, took a loan to leave for Riyadh to work as part of Empower Contracting, a subsidiary of the construction business Saudi Binladen Group. The dream to support his family did not […]
Rajayah Yenkampally, a 43-year-old native of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, is on a train home from Mumbai. “I Landed at Mumbai airport from Kuwait today (Saturday). Still it hurts. I have 22 stitches in my head.” Yenkampally, who migrated to Kuwait in 2016 on a domestic worker visa, was forced to work […]
When Siri Hettige, a sociology professor at Colombo University, conducts surveys of young people across Sri Lanka, he never fails to ask one key question: Does anybody want to become a farmer? ‘No’ has been the overwhelmingly emphatic answer, he said. That is one indicator of the growing poverty plaguing many farmers in Sri Lanka, […]
The oil rich country with its luxurious lifestyle and cuisine from around the world is a perfect holiday destination. But beneath the glitz and glamour there’s a dark side as thousands of migrant laborers toil away, hidden, always under surveillance of local forces. The migrant workers often forego wages they are entitled to and don’t […]