DUBAI, 14 August 2007 — Illegal migrants the United Arab Emirates are availing of the ongoing three-month amnesty in large numbers and are returning to their countries with their dreams of finding fortunes in the Gulf shattered. Most of them came with the aim of earning money to provide a better living for their families back home.
Seeking amnesty is a host of people with various sad stories to tell. They include an Indian mother with a four-year-old boy born out of wedlock. The woman wants an exit pass for her son, who has no documents.
There is Shanti, a 32-year-old Sri Lankan housemaid with acute chest pain; H.C. Lal, a 40-year-old man from Haryana, India, who has been through two major surgeries due to multiple fractures; Rukmini, a victim of an unscrupulous agent, who was nearly driven to sell her body; and Sulekha, who has been washing dishes and clothes for the last 15 years.
Hailing from a poor family in Kozhikode in southern India, Sulekha has been shouldering her family’s financial burdens for a decade and a half. Then there is Abdul Hakim, a 27-year-old Bangladeshi with blood cancer.
Various diplomatic missions in the UAE, especially the Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi ones, are currently busy with helping amnesty seekers.
In June, the UAE government gave all illegal foreign workers three months to either become legal residents or leave without penalty. The amnesty scheme ends on Sept. 2 and there is a mad rush of people wanting to leave.
A senior Dubai immigration official has announced that people found employing illegal migrants would not be spared and face fines and even jail sentences. The authorities have made it clear that no mercy would be shown to those who ignore the amnesty and continue to stay illegally after the deadline. The Interior Ministry is now urging the public through billboards to cooperate with the authorities and inform them about illegal residents.
The Indian Consulate in Dubai alone has received more than 39,000 applications for Emergency Certificates (ECs) as of yesterday. Emergency Certificates are necessary to obtain exit passes from the concerned immigration authority.
“As of yesterday (Aug. 13), we have received more than 39,000 applications for Emergency Certificates. We have printed over 35,500 ECs and distributed 31,500 of them. Out of the 40,000 passports of Indian nationals received from the immigration authorities, around 19,100 have been distributed to the public,” consulate sources told Arab News yesterday.
According to officials at the consulate, about 65 percent of illegal Indian immigrants (35,000) are from Andhra Pradesh and that most of them are semi-skilled or unskilled. Many of them arrived in the country on visit visas and do not possess proper work permits.
There are around 1.4 million Indian expatriates in the UAE, many of whom work as contract workers. In Dubai alone, Indians comprise over 60 percent of the city’s total population of over 1.4 million.
Ravi Reddy, who hails from Andhra Pradesh’s Karim Nagar district, arrived in Dubai about four years ago on a visit visa. He was recruited by a contracting company in Dubai through an agency in Mumbai who told him that the company would pay him a monthly salary of 1,200 dirhams.
“But we were given only 550 dirhams per month which was hardly enough to survive,” said Ravi, who paid the agent around 145,000 rupees (around 13,188 dirhams) in placement fees. “My passport is with the agent. I am still an illegal resident. Anyway, I don’t want to come back, I will be leaving by the end of this month,” Ravi told Arab News.
Raju, who is from Andhra Pradesh, paid his agent about 90,000 rupees to get an office boy’s job in Dubai. Upon arrival, the agent took him to a construction company in Al-Qusais as a helper. After a week, he was told that he would be taken to Iraq and so he absconded.
Raju said that several of his friends were taken to Iraq via Dubai.
Jude Castillo, a 39-year-old qualified Filipino nurse, has been working as a cleaner at a company in Sharjah against her will. She was hired to work at a hospital but her agent forced her to become a cleaner earning 450 dirhams a month. She has been living in Dubai without valid documents. “I never thought I would be doing this job. I am a nursing graduate. I had paid around $4,000 to the agent and my passport is still with him,” said Jude of Cotabato City in the southern Philippines.
Meanwhile, a cultural body of Keralites has decided to charter an Air-India flight to repatriate free of cost Indian amnesty-seekers, who are unable to afford air tickets. The aircraft, carrying 166 amnesty-seekers, will leave Dubai International Airport for Calicut on Sept. 1, an official at the Dubai-based Kerala Muslim Cultural Center (KMCC) said.
S.M. Najeeb, the general manager of the Kerala government’s Department of Non-Resident Keralites’ Affairs (NORKA), said the agency has also decided to give free air tickets to needy Indian workers wanting to return home under the amnesty scheme.
“Those wanting to avail of this scheme should submit their documents at the Abu Dhabi Malayalee Samajam, Kerala Social Center, Indian Islamic Center and Indian Social Center,” Najeeb said.
Emirates Airlines has announced that it will offer special discounted fares to amnesty seekers. Air India has also lowered fares and will operate two additional flights on Aug. 19 and 22 to Hyderabad via Mumbai.
