In the Al Quoz industrial area of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a number of medium and large-sized buses can be spotted transporting workers clad in company uniforms to distant worksites early in the morning. In the evening or, in certain cases, late at night, these workers are brought back to labour camps […]
Category: Migrant Labor
Long before the earthquake hit last year, the districts around Kathmandu were already hotbeds of trafficking Charimaya Tamang was just 16 when she was drugged, trafficked and sold into a brothel in India. She was rescued, and returned to Nepal in 1996. Twenty years later, Nepal has introduced multiple measures, most importantly the 1998 National […]
Indian migrant labourers in Jordon and other West Asian countries have little to hope for unless there is considerable labour reform. For millions of Indians who travel to the Gulf and other West Asian countries for work, the kafala (sponsor) system is a known devil. As per the system, which operates right across the region, […]
Sale of work visas in black market plays havoc with the lives of migrant workers Foreign remittances sent by Pakistanis working abroad are around six per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and hint at the huge number of labour migrants who have left for foreign lands to earn their livelihood. If we […]
Thousands of Pakistani migrant workers are stranded in Saudi Arabia, and experts predict the situation will only worsen with the plummeting oil prices Shahzad Hussain, father of a young son, belongs to district Sheikhupura in Punjab. Around six months ago, he borrowed Rs600,000 from his relatives and friends to go to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for […]
Mizanur Rahman, a mason at a construction firm in Saudi Arabia, is worried about losing his job. His employer has recently expressed inability to continue some of the ongoing projects due to financial crisis. The lone breadwinner of a five-member family from Faridpur cannot even begin to imagine what would happen to his family if […]
Bangladeshis who came to Malaysia before August 2015 as a tourist or labourer can apply for legal worker status. But agents are making money by promising all migrant workers that they can help them obtain legal status. Even the main company involved with the legalization process of migrant workers, MYEG, is taking advantage of workers. […]
The maltreatment of migrants has led to many deaths and brought disgrace to the country besides obstructing long-term economic progress. By Joshua Woo Sze Zeng in Free Malaysia Today The Nepalese embassy’s recent report of 461 deaths of its workers in 2015 is a 32% increase from the 348 deaths in 2014. That is an […]
Almost 50 percent of migrant workers in Malaysian detention camps are from Bangladesh. The conditions here are often cruel and inhuman. The Bangladesh High Commission says there is lack of supervision in the camps; many of the charges against workers are not true. (As broadcast on Ekattor TV, Bangladesh.)
Survivors of human trafficking are entitled to assistance, protection and access to justice regardless of their residence status or whether perpetrators are identified and prosecuted. By James Nayagam in Free Malaysia Today The US State Department has just released the 2016 Trafficking in Persons Report placing Malaysia on the Tier 2 Watch List. This is […]