Roshan Bhatta looked hopeless during an encounter at the Nepalese embassy in Malaysia which is situated along Jalang Ampang road. Bhatta, an employee at a Rawang based company that produces paper bags, became undocumented after he continued to work in Malaysia without extending his visa after it expired two years ago. Bhatta, a resident of Basundhara-Kathmandu, wanted to return home to meet his sick mother. The process was proving much costlier than […]
When the sky is clear, Rajan Thapa, 37, stares towards Kula Lumpur from Genting Highlands, which is about 30 kilometers away from the Malaysian capital. For him, the mega towers of Kuala Lumpur are dwarfed by his own towering struggles. Rapid economic growth and neon-lights of the proud and prosperous city fail to illuminate his life. Born in […]
Migrant workers toil in the sweltering heat; they do not get their wages on time and they live in dismal conditions. Their labour is exploited as they work for 10 to 12 hours a day instead of the prescribed 8 hours. The workers don’t get clean water for drinking. This is happening in Dubai, Sharjah […]
On June 18, my father rang me from our home in Gitanagar of Chitwan district. “What should we do? Are you there? Get the information on what we need to do, and that too as soon as possible!” He uttered everything in a single breath. My father has a husky voice but never speaks in a rush. As soon […]
After two years of hardship in Saudi, Joomaila Beevi returned to India empty handed. The 48-year-old widow now survives on what her aged parents and siblings earn. When Migrants-Rights.org met Joomaila at her thatched-roof home in Kerala, she was getting ready to travel the northern part of the state to work as a midwife and […]
After the 5 rials (around Rs 800) given by the Indian embassy on Tuesday to meet emergencies exhausts, we will be again in the same situation. No money even for emergencies. Uncertainty on what to do is haunting us a lot. These were the words of around 800 Indian workers who are stranded in an […]
A 27-year-old domestic worker, Sameera*, from Bengaluru, is stuck in Abu Dhabi after she escaped from an employer who is said to have been unbearably exploitative. On August 3, she somehow escaped the house, and reached the Embassy of India, UAE, Abu Dhabi. But when officials there turned her away, she was caught by her […]
When Nathkulasinham Nesemalhar took a flight from Colombo to Muscat in March she believed the boarding pass she clutched in her hand was her golden ticket to a better life after decades of war where she lost everything, including her husband. The 54-year-old widow from Sri Lanka’s former war zone had been promised work as […]
When Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates led the imposition of a political and economic blockade on Qatar last month, there were immediate, far-reaching consequences: Flights were canceled and rerouted, Qatari citizens were expelled from other Arab states of the Persian Gulf, shipping routes were closed and airspace was suddenly off-limits to Qatar’s pilots. […]
“That hell,” was a windowless, dark cell in Brooklyn that Anser Mehmood, a Pakistani truck driver, had inhabited alone for four months in 2001. Mehmood was a father to four children, at the time living in the port city of Bayonne, New Jersey on the Atlantic coastline. Guards surveilled him night and day from a […]