RIYADH, 11 June 2006 — Alarmed by the ever-increasing harassment cases of Asian workers in the Gulf, the Indian government has taken a unilateral decision to punish the illegal recruitment agents in India. The government has also promised stringent implementation of emigration laws to curb the fraudulent recruitment.
People are virtually smuggled in the Gulf by unscrupulous middlemen by forging the credentials of those interested to somehow make it to the oil rich countries. Once pushed inside the “promised land” these people are left to fend for themselves as a result of which they become an easy target for exploitation.
Recently, Vylar Ravi, the minister of overseas indian affairs, met eight Indian ambassadors from different countries in the Middle East in Qatari capital, Doha, to discuss contentious issues troubling the large Indian population of the region.
The exploitation of an Indian worker was the most sensitive of all. It seems the recent violent incidents involving Asian expatriates in Dubai did create the impact, thanks to the large-scale publicity it received in the media. The workers’ main allegation was the non-payment of the promised wages.
In another new incident in Bahrain, five Indian workers were allegedly locked up in their room for demanding overtime dues. Their sponsor was arrested by the police but was released later as workers withdrew the complaint for reasons best known to them.
The most common grievance of the Asian workers is that salary agreed and signed on contract papers in their own country is usually higher than the contract on which they are forced to sign once they arrive in a foreign country. Moreover, their passports are taken away and the workers have no recourse to legal course.
These new and unfortunate sequences of events made the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs to sit up and take some concrete action. It has now decided to set things in order in India itself by amending the 1983 Emigration Act to make punishment for illegal recruitment harsher by raising the minimum imprisonment to five years from the present six months. The amount of fine will also be increased manifold by at least 25 times from what is charged currently.
Indeed, some recruitment agencies have brought bad name to the country as they end up sending people with all kinds of doctored qualifications. As a result, the hapless job seekers take up whatever job that is given to them. With such manpower, sometimes it is no surprise if one comes across secretaries who can not speak English, carpenters who can not fix doors, IT engineers who are not fit to be even technicians and teachers who cannot teach.
Though dilution of working standards and exploitation of workers are seen across the cross section of nationalities in the Gulf, a crackdown on bogus recruitment in India sets a good example.
It remains to be seen to what extent government matches it words with action.
