human trafficking – Page 2 – Minivan News

Bangladesh to reopen worker migration to the Maldives

Bangladesh will lift the ban on worker migration to the Maldives after a government delegation was sent to investigate allegations of fraudulent recruitment, forced labour and migrant unemployment.

In September Minivan News reported that the Bangladesh’s Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) had prohibited immigration over concerns that labourers were being lured to the Maldives with the promise of jobs, only to find themselves unemployed and unable to return to their home country.

BMET Director General Begum Shamsun Nahar told the Dhaka Tribune that “a delegation went to Maldives recently and found that our workers are all employed there.”

However he noted that the wages in the Maldives were low while the migration cost was high, with the average worker spending around Tk 2,00,000 (US$2500) to go to country, despite earning only US$150-190 per month.

The Dhaka Tribune noted that while the Maldivian government’s data put the number of Bangladeshi workers at 80 000, BMET had only recorded the departure of 28,000 workers since 1976.

The head of the delegation to the Maldives, Deputy Secretary of the Expatriates’ Welfare Ministry Badiur Rahman told the Tribune that workers were using middlemen to bypass immigration procedures, “and overcome the limited interest of Maldivians in becoming labourers.”

According to Mohamed Ali Janah, former President of the Maldives Association of Construction Industry (MACI), the lack of a functioning labour management system combined with this domestic labour shortage prohibits employers from recruiting legitimate workers amongst the expatriate population.

Janah estimated earlier this year that the country’s illegal foreign workforce was potentially at 100,000 people, he said the failure to implement a functioning system of labour management in the Maldives had made it hugely difficult to find legitimate workers among the expatriate population.

“Why would we want to hire potentially illegal labour, we don’t know who these people are,” he said. “We have a huge number of projects in the country right now, so we will have to find the people to work, even if it is from China or Cambodia or another country.”

The Maldives was this year placed on the US State Department’s Tier Two Watch List for Human Trafficking for the fourth consecutive year.

As with last year’s report, the country avoided a downgrade to the lowest tier “because [the] government has a written plan that, if implemented, would constitute making significant efforts to meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.”

However US Ambassador-at-large for the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Luis CdeBaca, noted during the release of the report that the six countries again spared a downgrade would not be eligible next year – including Afghanistan, Barbados, Chad, Malaysia, Thailand and the Maldives.

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Indian authorities report hundreds of workers forced from Maldives without wages

The Indian High Commission in Male’ has said it is aware of hundreds of cases over the last three months where its nationals have gone unpaid, before facing deportation or being forced to return home without their earnings.

State institutions and bodies including the country’s Labour Relations Authority (LRA), police, immigration officials and the foreign ministry have all been accused by the high commission of failing to fulfil their duties, and – in some cases – “deliberately encouraging” the mistreatment of foreign workers.

The concerns have been raised by Indian authorities after the Bangladesh government last week temporarily halted migration of its own nationals to work in the Maldives – unless accredited by the state – over fears they were becoming victims of a “section of unscrupulous recruiting agencies”.

In June, the Maldives was placed on the US State Department’s Tier Two Watch List for Human Trafficking for a fourth consecutive year – with the US State Department noting conditions of “fraudulent recruitment, confiscation of identity and travel documents, withholding or nonpayment of wages, and debt bondage”.

Indian High Commission sources – citing the example of the Bangladesh Government – said that its own authorities should now consider similar intervention after increasing instances of workers being denied salaries and basic human rights.

“No employer can take a foreign national’s passport, yet this is happening. Some semi-literate workers who are here cannot draft letters or seek justice. Without pay they cannot go to the Civil Court,” said a commission source.

“So they are having to leave the country either with no salary, or instead compromising and getting just some of the money they are owed. Ultimately their employers just contact agents and then bring new workers to the country.”

Minivan News was last week shown several files containing correspondence by the Indian High Commission detailing its communications with Maldivian private employers who have not provided expatriates their wages, despite accepting that payments are owed to former Indian staff.

The majority of promises for financial reimbursement remain unfulfilled at time of press, with the employees in question having been forced to return home or turn to the high commission for food and support, Indian authorities have said.

Commission support

Indian nationals Santosh Kumar Ram and Harendra Kumar are the latest expatriates forced to leave the Maldives, after unsuccessfully pursuing months of unpaid wages that left them without food or income, and forced to beg their own government for financial support.

An official for the Indian High Commission said that the two men, who had both been in the Maldives since last year, had communicated their concerns on July 22, 2013, alleging they had not been paid by their employer for the final six months of their employment.

Despite the intervention of the high commission, both men – who had been staying in shelter provided by their employer – had been declared absconders by the state, resulting in them leaving the country this week as deportees. Their former employer, who denied responsibility for the two men, did provide return flights for the two Indian nationals, but declined to pay them the earnings claimed to be outstanding.

“This is completely unacceptable,” said a diplomatic source with knowledge of the case.

While provided shelter by their employer – who has denied ever employing Santosh Kumar Ram and Harendra Kumar – the two men have not been given food, relying instead on the commission to ensure they were fed.

The two men had previously sought support at the Department of Immigration and Emigration’s shelter for undocumented workers in Male’, opened this year as part of attempts to offer a more “humane” means of tackling the issue of unregistered foreign workers in the country.

However, the high commission said both expatriates were denied assistance at the shelter as their then-employer, despite not providing food, had given them accommodation.

In a similar case earlier this year, the Indian High Commission said another six of its nationals had been forced to leave the country without four months of salaries they were owed by their employer. The commission argued that they could not afford to remain in the country for ongoing legal action to claim their money.

In a letter seen by Minivan News, one employer said that delayed payments to the six workers was related to the “financial crises”, but promised the Indian High Commission the debt would be settled.

The six affected workers, since returned to India, are still waiting for their earnings at time of press.

High commission sources said that they had also been made aware of semi-literate foreign nationals being sent to other islands by their employers for non-existent work. Once on another island, they were then being reported as having fled the company with whom they are registered for their visa.

Department of Immigration Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Abdullah Munaaz and Chief Superintendent of Immigration Zubair Muhammad were not responding to calls from Minivan News at time of press.

Minivan News was also awaiting a response from the Foreign Ministry at time of press over the high commission’s concerns.

“Systematic abuse”

Immigration Controller Dr Mohamed Ali has previously told Minivan News that while almost all foreign workers coming to the Maldives arrive under registered companies, some were finding themselves “illegally used” by employers due to “systematic abuse” of the visa system.

Foreign low-wage workers are often lured to the country by agents after paying a ‘recruitment’ fee or entering into debt – sometimes as high as several thousand dollars – that is shared between local agents and recruiters in the country of origin, most significantly Bangladesh.

In many cases the workers are then brought into the country ‘legitimately’ by a specially-created paper company, created using the ID of a complicit or unwitting Maldivian national, for the stated purpose of working on a ‘construction project’ of dubious existence.

The exact scale of the Maldives’ unregistered foreign workforce remains unknown, with estimates ranging from between around 40,000 people to potentially double that amount.

In April, Immigration Controller Dr Mohamed Ali confirmed that authorities had targeted the return of 10,000 unregistered workers by the end of the 2013.

The pledge to return a pre-determined number of expatriates was criticised at the time by the Human Rights Commission of Maldives (HRCM), which raised concerns that some workers were potentially being punished for the actions of employers or agents acting outside the law.

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Bangladesh halts worker migration to the Maldives

Bangladesh has temporarily blocked its nationals from migrating to the Maldives – an action described by one key local employer as a response to decades of failure by Maldivian authorities to deal with “human trafficking” and labour management.

The ‘Dhaka Tribune’ newspaper reported yesterday (September 23) that the country’s Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) had decided to halt migration to the Maldives over concerns nationals were arriving in the country only to find promised jobs were not available.

It was believed that Bangladesh nationals were – in certain cases – becoming unwitting victims of a “section of unscrupulous recruiting agencies,” the report added.

BMET Director General Shamsun Nahar was quoted in local media as claiming that the number of workers from Bangladesh within the Maldives was thought to be at the “maximum limit” for such a small country.

The High Commissioner of Bangladesh in the Maldives, Rear Admiral Abu Saeed Mohamed Abdul Awal, today confirmed that the decision was made to check on the eligibility of workers.

“This is a temporary measure for review, genuine job seekers will be allowed to come through the proper procedure,” he said, adding that there were no plans to inspect the wider employment practices of Bangladesh nationals in the country.

Maldives Immigration Controller Dr Mohamed Ali said he had not received any notice of the decision, while other sources in his department were only aware of the matter through media reports.

Foreign low-wage workers are often lured to the country by brokers, paying a ‘recruitment’ fee – sometimes as high as several thousand dollars – that is shared between local agents and recruiters in the country of origin.

In June, the Maldives was placed on the US State Department’s Tier Two Watch List for Human Trafficking for the fourth consecutive year – the US State Department noting conditions of “forced labour: fraudulent recruitment, confiscation of identity and travel documents, withholding or nonpayment of wages, and debt bondage” of expatriate workers.

Employer view

Former Maldives Association of Construction Industry (MACI) President Mohamed Ali Janah said he was “shocked” by the position taken by Bangladesh authorities to halt migration.

“This represents the ongoing failure of labour management in the Maldives over the last two decades,” he said. “We have seen rampant corruption in how the labour management business has been run by organised criminals for a long time.”

Janah alleged that, as a result the action by Bangladeshi authorities this week, many businesses in the industry were likely to suffer “collateral damage” from the impact on the available foreign workforce.

“We need at least 2,000 to 3,000 workers in the next two weeks for a number of projects overseen by my company,” he said.

Janah said that while his company wished to employ a larger number of Maldivian staff, even if he paid wages of MVR10,000 (US$650) he claimed there was limited interest among the local population to be labourers.

While Janah estimated earlier this year that the country’s illegal foreign workforce was potentially at 100,000 people, he said the failure to implement a functioning system of labour management in the Maldives had made it hugely difficult to find legitimate workers among the expatriate population.

According to Janah, the alleged mismanagement of foreign labour in the country could be resolved within months if local authorities took a genuine effort to resolve the problems through measures such as proper screening of foreign nationals or even DNA testing.

He argued, however, that such a focus would require an elected government with a democratic mandate to conduct such work.

Earlier this year, the Immigration Department confirmed that authorities had targeted the return of 10,000 unregistered workers by the end of the year.

This pledge to return a predetermined number of expatriates was criticised at the time by the Human Rights Commission of Maldives (HRCM), which raised concerns that some workers were being punished for the actions of employers and agents acting outside the law.

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Immigration Department denies vital components missing from replacement border system

The Department of Immigration and Emigration has rejected accusations that a replacement border control system provided by US authorities will not be fit for purpose without “enhancements” currently being made to the technology.

An immigration source speaking on condition of anonymity last week told Minivan News that the Personal Identification Secure Comparison and Evaluation System (PISCES) – provided free of charge by the US government – was not an adequate replacement for the previous system provided by Malaysia-based Nexbis.

The PISCES system would only provide one of several functions afforded by the “total solution” installed by Nexbis under an agreement recently scrapped by the government, alleged a local source experienced in working with both border control systems.

“Nexbis provided a total solution that not only allowed for checking of biometric data, but would also be used to process visas and work permits,” the source claimed at the time.

Enhancements underway

Chief Superintendent of Immigration Zubair Muhammad today confirmed that enhancements were continuing to be made to the functionality of the PISCES since its installation as a direct replacement for the Nexbis system earlier this month.

Asked for more details on the nature of changes being made to PISCES, Zubair responded that a press conference had been scheduled for Sunday (September 1) at which representatives from the Ministry of Defence, the National Centre for Information Technology (NCIT) and immigration officials would discuss the ongoing work.

He also declined to provide details on whether any Immigration Department systems would have been affected by the changeover from the dismissed Nexbis technology at the present time.

Immigration Controller Dr Mohamed Ali meanwhile declined to comment on the PISCES technology when contacted today, and Defence Minister Mohamed Nazim had not responded at the time of press.

Nazim earlier this month claimed that both US and local authorities were continuing to develop PISCES since its introduction at Ibrahim Nasir International airport (INIA) to ensure it could meet the technical criteria required by immigration officials in the country.

“During training [to use the system], we realised that we needed to do enhancements,” he said at the time.

Asked if the country’s border controls could be open to abuse while these enhancements were being implemented, Nazim had responded that several amendments were expected to have been completed over the last week.

Immigration Department Spokesperson Ibrahim Ashraf at the time said that the country’s border controls had been transferred from Nexbis’ technology to Pisces without many issues.

He added that PISCES was nonetheless reliant on data from the Nexbis system, with technical staff from the Malaysian firm and the immigration working on transferring the necessary information.

Nexbis agreement

Nexbis’ border control system, used at Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA) since September 2012, was replaced on August 20 following the government’s decision to terminate its concession agreement for the use and management of the system.

Nexbis has rubbished the Maldivian government’s reasons for terminating their agreement to build and operate a new border control system, accusing human traffickers – fearful of a more comprehensive system – of being behind the decision.

In June, the Maldives was placed on the US State Department’s Tier Two Watch List for Human Trafficking for the fourth consecutive year.

The PISCES system, designed by US tech firm Booz Allen Hamilton, has already been implemented in numerous other countries around the world, including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Thailand.

Nexbis’s statement also took issue with Defence Minister Nazim’s claims that the installation of its system was causing “major losses” to the state – this claim was reported in local media on August 6 when the Malaysian company was informed it had 14 days to vacate the country.

The company argued that its system was also installed and operated free of charge, and that the US$2.8million it had billed the government was the amount due for the arrival and departure of foreigners as per the original agreement.

The Nexbis deal has been dogged by allegations of corruption since it was agreed under the government of former President Mohamed Nasheed in 2010.

The failure of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to conclusively prove foul play in this respect has exonerated Nexbis from such charges, the company has claimed.

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PISCES “enhancements” will match Nexbis technology: Defence Minister

Defence Minister Mohamed Nazim has said that “enhancements” will be made to US Government-supplied border controls in the next few days, amidst allegations the technology is not an adequate replacement for the scrapped Nexbis system.

Amendments will be made to the Personal Identification Secure Comparison and Evaluation System (PISCES) installed this week in order to ensure the US technology “matches” the capabilities of a previous border system provided by Malaysia-based IT group Nexbis, Nazim told Minivan News yesterday (August 21).

The US-provided PISCES system would only provide one of several functions afforded by the “total solution” Nexbis had installed, alleged a local source experienced in working with both border control systems. The source spoke to Minivan News on condition of anonymity.

The two systems are not compatible – at present PISCES can handle just one of the many modules managed by technology provided by Nexbis, the source continued.

“Nexbis provided a total solution that not only allowed for checking of biometric data, but would also be used to process visas and work permits.”

By comparison, the source claimed that PISCES was expected to serve effectively as an extension of the US government’s own border tracking system, allowing the country – as well as Maldives officials – to monitor the movements of specific individuals passing through the country.

Meanwhile, Nazim claimed that PISCES, which went into operation at INIA yesterday (August 20), was continuing to be developed by US and local authorities in order to meet the criteria required by Maldives immigration officials.

“During training [to use the system], we realised that we needed to do enhancements,” he said.

US officials are continuing to work with authorities to provide PISCES technical support, which had been provided as a “free gift” by the US government under a Memorandum of Intention agreed in March this year, added Nazim.

Asked if the country’s border controls could be open to abuse while these enhancements were being implemented, Nazim responded that several amendments were expected to be completed in the coming days.

“Total solution” to be replaced with “terrorist tracking”

The Department of Immigration and Emigration has confirmed that the PISCES system came into operation yesterday morning, with officials representing Nexbis and the government present to oversee the transfer of technology.

The system was functioning and had been transferred without many issues after coming online this week, said Immigration Department Spokesperson Ibrahim Ashraf.

PISCES is still presently reliant on data from the Nexbis system, though technical staff from the Malaysian firm and the Immigration Department were currently working on transferring the necessary information, said Ashraf.

However, immigration officials today requested Minivan News contact the Ministry of Defence over alleged challenges resulting from the implementation of the PISCES system.

A spokesperson for the US Embassy in Sri Lanka reiterated comments made in an official statement released in March that the system had been “tailored to the Maldives’ specific border control needs”.

Nexbis last week rubbished the Maldivian government’s reasons for terminating their agreement to build and operate a new border control system, accusing human traffickers – fearful of a more comprehensive system – of being behind the decision.

“The US PISCES system that is meant to replace the MIBCS [Nexbis system] is not a border control system nor is it an immigration solution, rather it is a terrorist tracking system that simply captures information of travellers and Maldivians who transit in and out of the country,” read an official statement.

In June, the Maldives was placed on the US State Department’s Tier Two Watch List for Human Trafficking for the fourth consecutive year.

The PISCES system, designed by US tech firm Booz Allen Hamilton, has already been implemented in numerous other countries around the world, including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Thailand.

Nexbis contended that the official notice of the termination it had received contradicted the statement given by the Defence Minister.

The terms of the agreement are governed under Singapore law, as are those of the GMR airport contract – terminated in November last year. The cancellation of this deal, the largest foreign direct investment in the country’s history, has led the GMR to seek US$1.4billion in compensation.

The Nexbis deal has been dogged by allegations of corruption since it was agreed under the government of former President Mohamed Nasheed in 2010. The failure of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to conclusively prove foul play in this respect has exonerated Nexbis from such charges, the company has claimed.

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Visa crisis hitting hiring and business, say resorts

Major resort operators in the Maldives have expressed serious concern with the country’s escalating visa crisis, claiming a failure to resolve the ongoing problems is leading to an inability to hire critical foreign personnel and stranding existing workers in the country.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, management for several exclusive resort properties in the Maldives expressed alarm that inefficiencies processing visas were not only preventing the hiring of foreign workers, but also preventing staff from being able to leave the country.

These concerns were aired as the Department of Immigration expressed confidence it would be able to clear a backlog of visa documentation for foreign workers, during an 11 day period in which it would not be accepting new applications.

Immigration authorities said the halt was necessary to improve service by clearing a backlog of documents uploaded online, however multiple resorts accused the department of being “inefficient” and “sporadic”.

A senior representative for one multinational group operating properties across the country said the company’s human resources team had raised issues with immigration not accepting visa applications between August 8 to August 18.

The source said the concerns reflected a wider problem with hiring foreign staff. The company said the delays had forced it to delay hiring vital staff, which was impacting the guest experience.

The general manager of another exclusive resort agreed that a failure to address ongoing problems obtaining visas for foreign nationals remained a “real issue”.

“We have staff members whose visas have now expired who cannot leave the country for various reasons such as annual leave, and sometimes really serious issues,” the manager said.

The source claimed that services provided by the country’s immigration department was “sporadic”, with individual applications taking an unpredictable amount of time to be processed.

“This all needs to be done by one government department instead of three, and the entire system needs less people working more efficiently,” the manager added.

The resort source said the decision of immigration authorities to suspend new applications for work visas for 11 days this month had hampered efforts to recruit needed staff during the busy Eid period.

Public sector

Despite the concerns raised by private employers, Health Ministry Permanent Secretary Geela Ali said state authorities had been consulted by immigration authorities in advance of not accepting visa applications.

Geela said that as a major employer of foreigners, both the health and education ministries had been given a period of two to three days to fast track any urgent requests for expatriate labour in order to minimise impacts to their operations while the visa system was “repaired”.

She added that while there would still be some difficulties for the ministries due to the ongoing work by immigration officials, the work was anticipated to allow for a more efficient visa system after completion.

Immigration Department Spokesperson Ibrahim Ashraf told Minivan News that the expat online system remained functional this week, although users would be unable to submit any visa applications for processing.

“Thousands of documents have been uploaded and there seem to be a number of counterfeit documents among these,” he said. “We are confident this this backlog will be cleared and new staff have also now been trained to oversee work going forward.”

The immigration department has previously announced that it would be hiring 30 staff to help oversee a comprehensive audit of the visa system.

Ashraf claimed that there was particular concern about business and individual applicants looking to obtain a foreign worker quota or visa by uploading documents that were either incorrect, irrelevant or fraudulent .

Immigration officials earlier this year dismissed reports of a “flaw” in the country’s online expatriate registration system, instead expressing concern that the technology was open to abuse by registered companies.

The Immigration Department confirmed at the time that authorities faced challenges in verifying whether construction projects were real, or a front to smuggle foreign labour into the country, but told Minivan News it had expected to resolve the issue by July.

Trapped in the Maldives

Minivan News has in recent months been informed of a growing number expatriates working in both the public and private sector who have been stranded in the Maldives by immigration authorities due to a failure of state and private employers to renew visa documentation.

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Trapped in the Maldives: foreign nationals stranded due to employers, state failing to resolve visa issues

A growing number of foreign nationals are finding themselves forbidden from leaving the Maldives by immigration staff, due to the failure of state and private employers to renew visa documentation.

The Indian High Commission in the Maldives told Minivan News it was now demanding government intervention after receiving complaints from expatriates claiming they have been blocked from boarding planes at Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA), and stranded in the country indefinitely.

Minivan News has learned of cases where expatriates from India, the UK, the US and the Philippines have been blocked from leaving the country due to issues with visa documentation attributable to the negligence of state authorities and employers – in some cases, government ministries.

Unable to leave – and in some cases fined extortionate sums on behalf of the employer – foreigners are complaining of being trapped without funds, accommodation or legal representation.

As employers are responsible for arranging work permits on behalf of their foreign employees, foreign nationals are unable to submit or collect their own visa documentation, effectively stranding them in the Maldives at the mercy of their employers and state authorities while renewals are underway.

One UK national, seeking to ensure his own work permit was processed, even told Minivan News he was refused service at the immigration office on the grounds of “Where’s your owner?”.

An Indian High Commission source this week accused authorities of persecuting foreign nationals for the failure of the state and private employers to correctly renew or register foreign staff in the required time, depriving expatriates of their freedom of movement.

In just the past few days, the high commission said two Indian nationals had missed flights and been stranded in the Maldives while waiting for employers and government authorities to resolve the outstanding issues with their paperwork.

One of those affected, licensed pathologist at the state-run Indira Ghandi Memorial Hospital (IGMH), Dr Anjula Jain, was prevented from returning to India last week after completing her contract with the Ministry of Health.

She was forced to wait several days before receiving approval to book another flight with her own money.

Dr Jain has since filed an official complaint over her treatment with the Indian High Commission.

A High Commission source said Dr Jain had been told at immigration counter that she could not leave the country as her work visa had expired, despite the Health Ministry being in the process of renewing her documents.

Despite possessing papers showing the renewal process was ongoing, the doctor was still refused permission to leave.

Dr Jain was then asked to obtain a letter from the Health Ministry confirming the renewal of her documents was underway, before finally obtaining clearance from the Department of Immigration to leave the country days later.

The High Commission source said it was extremely concerned that Maldives employers, especially state authorities such as the Health Ministry, were continuing to employ foreign nationals even after their visas had expired, resulting in serious difficulties for the workers.

“There is a serious problem here for expatriates working for private and government companies where a visa is not renewed in time, with some people even having their bank accounts frozen and being deprived of their rights,” the source said.

“One call is too many,” the source said. “Concerns have been raised with [State Foreign Minister] Hassan Saeed as some similar cases have been brought to our attention. [The commission] will be checking with authorities that a systematic resolution can be found by the government to resolve this issue.”

Trapped in Male

Several foreign staff of varying nationalities working in areas ranging from tourism to the NGO sector have told Minivan News they are effectively barred from leaving due to problems with paperwork they are unable to resolve without the assistance of ambivalent employers and immigration staff.

One US national working in the NGO sector told Minivan News that she remains blocked from leaving the country due to a delay in obtaining a visa stamp in her passport, after discovering at the immigration counter that a previous employer had failed to pay outstanding visa charges.

Speaking to Minivan News on condition of anonymity, the woman said that during a recent attempt to fly to Sri Lanka for a medical reasons, immigration staff had summoned an airline official, who had ripped up her ticket in front of her.

“I spent a year working for my former employer. It took six months of demanding my passport be returned to me before it was, however I was constantly reassured all my documentation was in order and there were just processing delays. So I was very surprised to discover they had failed to pay the appropriate work visa fees,” she said.

“This has not only caused problems for my current employer, it has put me in a very vulnerable position as an expatriate worker. I’ve been prevented from leaving the country – urgently for health reasons – by the Immigration Department because of these unpaid fees resulting in my documentation not being properly updated.”

The US national said she was now effectively at the mercy of previous employers to resolve the outstanding payments, as she was unable to afford the the MVR 15,000 (US$1000) in fines demanded by immigration authorities to allow her to leave the country.

“Despite being in constant contact with my former employer about these issues, and some of the members showing genuine concern, they have still failed to resolve the issue nearly seven months later. Instead they blame me for these issues, when it’s clearly their own professional incompetence. It’s a foul betrayal to have dedicated so much time and energy, as well as made numerous personal sacrifices, in order to partner with this organisation to achieve their mission, merely to be blatantly disrespected as a professional and individual,” she said.

“Foreign workers in the Maldives – of any nationality – are treated like slaves, or indentured servants at best. As a professional woman, it’s worse because you have to navigate the sexism and endure a lot of harassment – which would never be allowed if this was a country that respected its foreign employees.”

By contrast, the US national believed the only method to have visa documentation approved in a quick manner was to go through recruitment ‘agents’, alleging that corruption seemed to be endemic within the system, despite tight restrictions imposed on foreign professionals.

“The most ridiculous part of the situation is that in addition to my former employer’s incompetence, the department of immigration has been in a state of flux since Feb 2012, but this is not taken into consideration by the government. They don’t care. Illegal foreign workers are brought into the country and exploited in droves, but immigration punishes legitimate workers claiming they know what they are supposed to do,” she argued.

Employees must take responsibility: Immigration

The Department of Immigration confirmed it was aware that foreign nationals had been prevented from leaving due to their employers not having obtained visas correctly.

However, the immigration authority argued that the Maldives, like countries all over the world, required foreign nationals to have the correct visa documentation to enter or leave the country, even to their homeland.

Immigration Department spokesperson Ibrahim Ashraf said all expatriates would be aware that, in order to stay in a foreign country, it was mandatory to have the correct and valid visa.

Ashraf said that there had been a “huge backlog” of visas that were required to be processed by employers such as the health and education ministries, claiming that immigration authorities had made special arrangements to fast track visa renewals.

“This should not be happening,” he said of expatriates being prevented from boarding flights out of the country.

Ashraf claimed the Immigration Department had not been made aware of any concerns raised by the Indian High Commission over the issue of stranded workers, suggesting some issues may have been related to a “huge misunderstanding” of the visa system by employers.

“Payments for visas have to be made to the Maldives Inland Revenue Authority (MIRA), with passports then officially needing to be processed with the Department of Immigration once payment is complete,” he said. “The visa sticker has to be there in the passport.”

Ashraf stressed that a correct visa sticker was requested by airlines as well as foreign authorities to allow a foreign national to board any international flight.

Health Ministry backlog

Responding to the Indian High Commission’s concerns about Dr Jain, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Health Geela Ali told Minivan News said she was unaware of the case.

However, she accepted there had been issues with foreign doctors not being able to leave the country as a result of problems relating to visa extension issues, such as the transfer of staff from health corporations established under the previous government back to the ministry.

Geela insisted there were no longer recurring problems with visa extension of expatriates working for the health ministry, despite a backlog of outstanding documentation preventing staff from leaving, and said many issues had been resolved.

“The matter is now under control, but obviously there will sometimes be employees who cannot leave over visa issues,” she said.

Geela said IGMH was responsible for its large foreign workforce, and any workers who were facing issues leaving the country.

Indian authorities meanwhile last year slammed the government and some private employers for failing to reissue visa documentation to expatriates who were forced in some cases to wait weeks in Male to return home for visits and emergencies, including one worker’s own wedding.

In January, the high commission provided local media with a list of 11 grievances affecting its relationship with the Maldives, including discrimination, the keeping of passports of Indian nationals by employers, and the failure to repatriate mortal remains of foreign workers.

The source expressed confidence that authorities would find a resolution to the various grievances raised, despite claiming that no progress had made on any of the issues raised at time of press.

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Comment: ‘Human-trafficking’ to the fore again, but hopes remain

The US State Department’s continued placing of the Maldives on the ‘Tier Two Watch-List for Human-Trafficking’ could not have come at a worse – or better – time for the country’s authorities, particularly those intent on finding a way out for good.

Coming as it does after specific issues flagged by India over the past months, the US warning that Maldives could automatically slip into the ‘Tier Three’ [watchlist] with consequential sanctions of a non-humanitarian kind should be seen as a wake-up call for Male’ to set right matters, which have been allowed to drift for decades now.

At the bottom of the Maldivian plight should be the surge in development and growth inconsistent with the expectations and consequent preparations of the nation – particularly in the tourism sector – over the past three or four decades.

While successive governments have continued with the original policy of allowing foreign investors in big-time resort tourism to expatriate their earnings in dollars, this has also made wages less attractive for locals, with their relative perception of higher educational qualifications, to take up those jobs that are otherwise on offer.

This has led to an anomaly. While local youth can do with more and better-paying jobs, to match the very high cost of living in the country, the employer class on all fronts are dependent on immigrant labour to meet their needs. Thus, for a nation of 350,000, Maldives has an additional expatriate labour population totalling a conservative 100,000.

The US State Department estimate puts the figure upwards of 150,000. It is also the only major ‘labour recipient’ nation in South Asia, with most of them coming from Bangladesh and India, in that order but roughly in 5:3 ratio or thereabouts, followed by Sri Lanka – which used to be the dominant player, including the skills and white-collar sectors, earlier.

Better emigrant laws, regulations and enforcement in countries such as Sri Lanka and the Philippines, from where again immigrant labour have been working in Maldives, have made the country less attractive for the work-force from those destinations.

Learning from elsewhere

Maldives can learn from the US and the rest of the west, which as ‘labour-receiving nations’ not only have strict laws and enforcement, but have also become stricter with issuance of visas for immigrant employees – most of them of the white-collar, technocrat variety.

The US still however receives a large number of unskilled and semi-skilled labour from across the border with Mexico. Both the more regulated white-collar immigration and at times illegal immigration of Mexican labour have become hot election issue in the country, entailing government intervention.

Even in the Gulf-Arab region, for which south and South-East Asian nations have been providing the labour class in large numbers from the seventies, if not earlier, constant governmental pressure from overseas (alone) seems to have done the trick. There, the trend is getting reversed lately, with the locals too competing with the immigrants for the fewer available jobs.

Some of the Gulf nations have already begun following the west, in restricting employment opportunities for immigrants to facilitate better job opportunities for the locals.

Not just the Maldives as a nation, but Maldivians society as a whole can benefit from the authorities approaching the immigrant labour issue with an open mind, and raising the standard of labour protection to international levels.

At present, the (hospitality) industry (construction) infrastructure and household sectors are major employers of immigrant labour. Other than the high-end segments of the hospitality industry, others in these sectors do not address issues of labour concern – including minimum and sustainable wages, job-protection, legal remedies in case of employer wrong-doing, including with-holding of employee-passport and criminal intimidation, threats and at times attacks.

Ignorant and vulnerable

All these have made the immigrant labour class vulnerable in more ways than one.

With-holding of passports and non-extension of work-permits by the employer automatically renders the employee ‘illegal immigrant’, culpable to punitive punishment under the local laws. Seldom has there been a case of the authorities acting against the culprit-employer – or, working with host-governments to break the ‘job-racketeer network’, which often exploit the illiteracy and/or ignorance of the migrant labour class in particular.

Some of the insensitivity, if it can be called so, may also owe to the large-scale employment of immigrant labour in the household sector, where long hours of work for relatively low wages may have blinded the officialdom and the political class to the impossibility of the existing situation. The politico-administrative insensitivity to addressing the issues on hand may have been a product of the process.

This is seldom acknowledged, even less acted upon. The trend may have to change, with the political class taking the lead. Thus, the government should initiate legislative and legal measures to ensure fixed timings, minimum wages and other benefits and security for the migrant labour also in the household sector. The message would then spread.

If however, linkages are made between better labour/employee conditions and enforcement, the Maldivian Government would be in a position to attract its youthful population to productive sectors of the nation’s economy, thus churning out a possible process of social re-engineering.

In the absence of such pro-active measures, society has been complaining against itself that their youth power has been exhausting itself on unproductive goals and an ‘unfinished’ work culture.

The Maldivian Government has programmes against drug-abuse and rehabilitation addressing its youth, which otherwise constitutes over 40 per cent of the population. The dependence on the migrant labour could also become less, if only over a period.

A fourth major sector employing emigrant workers is the maldivian government, which has been recruiting teachers, doctors and nurses from countries such as India, which may also be the single largest supplier of white-collar workers of the high-skilled variety in the country.

As instances have been reported in the past, even government authorities have been in the habit of retaining the passports of Indians and other foreigners, at times recruited through shady job-agents.

This by itself may ensure the safety and security of the passports for the immigrant worker, as long as it is voluntary. But the unwarranted and avoidable delays in returning the passport when an employee had to rush back home for an emergency has caused issues both to the affected people and the host governments, which come under continual pressure from their constituencies in very many ways.

In the Maldivian context, it also means that an overseas employer returning home on an emergency call might have to spend an indefinite number of days at Male, spending heavily on an otherwise purposeless stay, to collect the passport. It is unfortunate that the recent Indian decision on registration for Indian visas for Maldivians has caused a similar problem for people from the interior islands with no relation or friend to put up with while in Male, which anyway is a crowded place for them to take such conventional courtesies for granted, any more.

In the famous ‘Menaka Gandhi case’ in 1979, otherwise, the Indian Supreme Court, for instance, had held that the passport of an Indian citizen was the property of the Government of India. It also implied that confiscation/retention of the same without proper legal authority and authorisation (even by Indian Government authorities) could tantamount to an act against the Indian sovereign, entailing the government of India to initiate appropriate measures – if some affected citizen were to approach the courts in India for redress.

Today, much is being said about the Government of India regulating the visa procedure for Maldivian nationals who visit India for medical care and education, their number being upwards of 50,000 each year.

Suggestions have also linked the matter to the controversial ‘GMR issue’. Maldivians wanting to travel to India on work or medical care in particular may have suffered, but there have not been any reported case of the visas for ’emergency patients’ and their attendants either being denied or even delayed, since.

If anything, the Indian authorities in Male’ are said to have prioritised such cases for fast-tracking visa issuance, though there is this avoidable tension for the next of kin who want to travel to India with their relation for emergency medical care.

Over the years, there have also been other cases of Maldivian employers, including the government, holding back passports, denying Indian immigrant employees to visit their dying kin, or lit the pyre of a dead parent, which also has great religious and spiritual significance for most Indians in particular.

What is not often known in Maldives – including the local media, which is otherwise sensitive to the perceived plight of Maldivians, likewise — is that many of these cases make waves in the high-literacy Kerala State in particular, where the media is as well networked as families.

Light at the end of the tunnel?

Lately, there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel. The government of President Mohammed Waheed Hassan Manik has started addressing some of the international concerns, including those of India’s.

The immigration authorities have notified that it is illegal for employers to hold back the passports of foreign labour – and the Indian High Commission, maybe among others, in Male has given adequate publicity for the same. Between them, the Maldivian Immigration and the IHC have also put in place a system for prior clearance for the High Commission for employer-recruiters sourcing emigrant labour from India.

Indian immigrant labour in Maldives has also been advised to route their work-permit, passport, etc, through the High Commission’s consular authorities – entailing additional workload for its staff. If found successful, it is not unlikely that the Indian government may (have to) consider extending the process to other embassies, especially in such countries with similar problems.

For foreign employees of the Maldivian government, a decision is said to be on the anvil for the passport-holders to retain their original document.

For others, particularly the lower-end labour class, a via media would still have to be found as they may still not be able to have a safe place to secure their passports and work-permits other than the custody of their employers, some of whom tend to abuse the trust and faith in more ways than one.

Indians may be among the most visible of beneficiaries in this case, their homes not being not far away from the Maldivian coasts could save on time, cost and avoidable agony by not having to camp in high-cost Male’ for a couple of days to collect their passport, after the authorities in the islands and their respective departments had cleared their leave applications.

Otherwise, a government proposal before Maldivian Parliament to clear extradition treaty would help in facilitating prisoner-swap between the two countries, for nationals of one country convicted in the other could undergo their prison-terms, if any, in their native land. Given the limited healthcare facility in Maldives, Indian prisoners would benefit from such a course. It could still be open if Maldivian prisoners in India could choose to spent their terms in Indian jails, or otherwise.

Distracted by democratisation?

It is possible that the turn of political events centred on the advent of multi-party democracy over the past several years may have distracted Maldives, and diffused its attention from equally pressing issues like those flagged by the US Report and highlighted by the specified Indian concern. Yet, the world does not wait for Maldives to set its political house in order – as a succession of US/UN reports on human trafficking and human rights have shown over the past years.

It is sad that a succession of political leadership in the country over the past years had not found the time — and more so the inclination — to address the larger issues cited in the annual reports of the US State Department – which for right reasons and wrong, have come to be acknowledged as bench-mark of an international kind, whether or not one likes it or not.

The writer is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation

All comment pieces are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write an opinion piece, please send proposals to [email protected]

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Maldives given final chance to avoid tier 3 in human trafficking report, face possible sanctions

The Maldives has been placed on the US State Department’s Tier Two Watch List for Human Trafficking for the fourth consecutive year.

This was, he noted, intended to prompt action in countries that were “getting comfortable being on Tier 2 Watch List, doing a minimum amount, not really doing all that much, not on the upward trajectory of a Tier 2 or a Tier 1 country.”

Tier 3 countries are defined by the State Department as those which “neither satisfy the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking nor demonstrate a significant effort to do so”, and are open to non-humanitarian and non-trade international sanctions.

Human trafficking in the Maldives

The Maldives is a destination country for human trafficking, including sex trafficking and particularly forced labour and debt bondage. Maldivian children were also trafficked within the country, the State Department noted.

“An unknown number of the approximate 150,000 documented and undocumented foreign workers in Maldives – primarily Bangladeshi and Indian men in the construction and service sectors – face conditions of forced labor: fraudulent recruitment, confiscation of identity and travel documents, withholding or nonpayment of wages, and debt bondage,” the report stated.

“Migrant workers pay the equivalent of approximately US$1,000 to US$4,000 in recruitment fees in order to migrate to Maldives, contributing to their risk of debt bondage inside the country.

“In addition to Bangladeshis and Indians, some migrants from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Nepal reportedly experienced recruitment fraud before arriving in Maldives.

“Recruitment agents in source countries collude with employers and agents in Maldives to facilitate fraudulent recruitment and forced labor of migrant workers.”

Despite widespread acknowledgement of the practice and the government’s submission of a draft anti-trafficking bill to parliament in December 2012, the Maldives still has no specific laws prohibiting human trafficking and “the government of the Maldives made minimal anti-trafficking enforcement efforts during the year.”

While forced labour was prohibited under the 2009 Employment Act, it was not penalised, the report noted.

“The government reported investigating four and prosecuting two sex trafficking cases in 2012, compared to no prosecutions recorded in 2011,” the report stated.

However “the government did not report any prosecutions of government employees for alleged complicity in trafficking-related offenses [and] the absence of government translators prevented foreign trafficking victims from pursuing recourse through the Maldivian legal system.”

Deport first, ask questions later

Instead, the government focused on deporting undocumented immigrants without screening them for indications of human trafficking.

“Some of these immigrants subsequently were identified by a civil society group as trafficking victims,” the report noted. “Due to a lack of comprehensive victim identification procedures, trafficking victims may have been inappropriately incarcerated, fined, or otherwise penalised for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of their being trafficked.”

The State Department report specifically noted that between March and December 2012 the government “arrested, imprisoned, and deported 29 foreign females for prostitution at beauty salons without first identifying whether they were sex trafficking victims.”

“The government did not provide foreign victims with legal alternatives to their removal to countries where they might face hardship or retribution. Authorities did not encourage victims to participate in the investigation or prosecution of trafficking offenders. Police officers reported that suspected trafficking victims were fearful of being arrested or deported by the police,” the report stated.

The focus on deportation was noted, with government officials even observing that the Maldives “had not meaningfully addressed the role Maldivian recruitment agents play in facilitating human trafficking.”

Police were reported to have fined three local recruitment agencies found to have engaged in fraud and forgery, however “no labor recruiter or agency was criminally prosecuted for fraudulent recruitment practices”, despite the creation of a recruitment agency oversight body in April 2011.

Sex trafficking

The report noted that a “small number” of women from Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, China, the Philippines, Eastern Europe, and former Soviet countries, as well as some girls from Bangladesh and Maldives, “are subjected to sex trafficking in Male.”

Domestic trafficking involved the transport of children from their home islands to the capital Male for the purposes of forced domestic servitude, with some also facing sexual abuse.

The report noted that while the 2009 Child Sex Abuse Act criminalised the prostitution of children with a penalty of up to 25 years’ imprisonment for violations, Article 14 of the same act “provides that if a person is legally married to a child under Islamic Sharia, none of the offenses specified in the legislation, including child prostitution, would be considered a crime.”

“The government did not report any efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts during the year,” the report noted.

Recommendations

The Maldives’ entry in the State Department’s report concluded with a long list of specific recommendations for the Maldives to combat human trafficking, and avoid the now otherwise inevitable downgrade to Tier 3 in June 2014.

These recommendations included:

Pass and enact legislation prohibiting and punishing all forms of trafficking in persons;
clearly distinguish between human trafficking, human smuggling and the presence of undocumented migrants in legislation, policies, and programs;
develop and implement systematic procedures for government officials to proactively identify victims of trafficking among vulnerable groups, such as undocumented migrants and females in prostitution;
ensure that trafficking victims are not penalized for acts committed as a result of being trafficked;
increase efforts to investigate and prosecute suspected trafficking offenses respecting due process;
work to ensure that identified victims of trafficking are provided access to victim services;
enforce prohibitions of passport retention by employers;
raise public awareness of human trafficking through media campaigns;
provide translators to police and other law enforcement authorities to ensure foreign workers are able to participate in investigations and prosecutions against their alleged traffickers;
improve inter-ministerial coordination on human trafficking issues;
ensure that changes to labor migration policies for the purpose of reducing human trafficking do not restrict legal migration;
take steps to ensure that employers and labor brokers do not abuse labor recruitment or sponsorship processes in order to subject migrant workers to forced labor;
accede to the 2000 UN TIP Protocol.

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