466 TN migrant workers in UAE faced rights violation

C Shivakumar

Chennai:

Four hundred and sixty six migrant workers from Tamil Nadu faced right violations in United Arab Emirates in the last three years, according to a study done by National Domestic Workers Movement and Migrant Forum in Asia.

The study states that maximum rights violations of Tamil Nadu migrant workers happened in the United Arab Emirates. Interestingly, going by the current trend huge number of violations are now happening in Kuwait, said Valarmathi of National Domestic Workers Movement, Migrant Forum India and a member of Migrant Forum in Asia.

Interestingly, the violations of the last three to four months in Kuwait have not been taken into account. The data is obtained as per the cases documented in Migrant Forum in Asia’s Migrants Rights Violation Reporting System (MRVRS), which facilitates the documentation of migrants’ rights violations.

The report states that the Middle-eastern nations top the list if the rights violation of migrant Tamil Nadu workers are taken into account.

The rights of 251 workers were violated in Qatar, 70 in Saudi Arabia, 64 in Oman, 71 in Kuwait, 51 in Jordan, 47 in Iran and 28 in Iraq.

Interestingly, Malaysia is ranked top when it comes to rights violation in East Asia. As per the study, 90 migrant workers rights were violated in the East asian country. Interestingly, this also comes in the wake of reports about 15 Tamil Nadu youth starving in Malaysia after the agents cheated them after posing as recruiters.

All the cases involve violations against low and semi-skilled Tamil Nadu migrant workers, such as dometic workers, construction workers, factory workers and manual labourers, said Valarmathi.

Most of the rights violations pertain to the worker not being paid or underpaid or the payment is delayed. Valarmathi said that 689 workers were affected by this in the last three years. Not only that many were subjected to cruelty besides physical abuse and torture etc.

Countries                             No of migrant workers affected

Bahrain                                       5

Ethiopia                                     23

Iran                                            47

Iraq                                           28

Jordan                                      51

Kuwait                                     71

Malaysia                                  90

Oman                                      64

Maldives                                   2

Qatar                                     251

Saudi Arabia                           70

Singapore                                  1

UAE                                     466