Tag: human trafficking

Expatriate workers becoming “very desperate” in wake of blackmarket dollar crackdown

Low-wage expatriate workers in the Maldives are becoming increasingly desperate in the wake of a government crackdown on the blackmarket exchange of rufiya into US dollars.

Many of the country’s 100,000 foreign workers, particularly a large percentage of labourers from Bangladesh, are paid in Maldivian rufiya by their employers and are forced to change the money on the blackmarket at rates often several rufiya higher than the government’s pegged rate of Rf12.85, before sending the money to their families.

Banks have been reluctant to sell dollars at the pegged rate in more than token quotas for much of the last year, a symptom of the ongoing dollar shortage – even those with dollar accounts have reported difficultly withdrawing cash at the counters without appropriate connections within financial institution.

Several expatriate workers Minivan News spoke to expressed frustration that banks were refusing to exchange rufiya to dollars, only to hand over money to local residents next in the queue.

A well-known figure in the Bangadeshi community, Saiful Islam, who has been in the country for 28 years, told Minivan News that many people were becoming “very desperate.”

“They are struggling to get money remitted to relatives and parents at the other end. This is a very desperate situation for them,” he said.

“There are some people who work in resorts and who are paid in US dollars who travel to Male’ and sell them at a much higher price than the government’s [pegged rate] of Rf12.85, sometimes as high as Rf14 or Rf15. There are people who are so desperate they will buy dollars at any price because they have no other choice,” Islam said.

“Without taking this demand into consideration, I don’t think a crackdown will work. I don’t think it is unfair to abide by the rules when you are in another country, however that changes when people become desperate – look at people in Libya, do you think they will apply by the government’s rules and regulations?”

“There needs to be an outlet where they money can be changed to US dollars, even 50 percent of it. Otherwise, why are they here? They have a big family at the other end who depend on their income.”

Unable to change money legitimately and under pressure to provide for families at home, and unable to leave due to the expense of air travel, debts owed to unscrupulous recruiters or common practices such as employers holding workers’ passports until the conclusion of their contract, many workers are functionally left without options other than to risk arrest.

Bangladesh’s High Commissioner to the Maldives, Rear Admiral Abu Saeed Mohamed Abdul Awal, acknowledged the problem was one that ”all expatriates face, because all their revenue is earned in local currency, but when they go to pay remittances it must be paid in dollars.”

The crackdown, Awal said, was the government’s prerogative, “however our concern is the payment of expats in local currency. There needs to be a proper government arrangement for repatriating salary.”

“This has become a pressing problem and a serious concern, however the availability of dollars is a longstanding issue. The issue of dollar scarcity is an internal matter for the Maldives.”

The President’s Press Secretary Mohamed Zuhair told Minivan News that there was an “expatriate element” to the dollar shortage faced by the Maldives due to the high numbers of “illegally-employed workers buying dollars on the blackmarket and transferring them overseas.”

Zuhair claimed that every expatriate arriving in the Maldives came in on a contract “stating what currency he would be paid in. The onus is on the employer to pay in US dollars.”

“If [the worker] accepted a contract paid in rufiyaa, then if he wants to send dollars back to his country he will have to change it at the bank when and if that is possible, or on the blackmarket [and risk arrest]. Banks have a quota at which they sell dollars based on need and supply.”

Zuhair said the police crackdown targeting the illegal sale of dollars by both licensed and unlicensed vendors had made “considerable progress, with two arrests.”

“The government hopes [the crackdown] will stabilise the dollar market, black or otherwise, and create a scenario whereby the dollar dips so anyone hoarding dollars will release their reserves,” he said. “We have the numbers and the numbers are clear: we have enough dollars in the country.”

Meanwhile, Zuhair said, the government was seeking to replace the Governor of the Maldives Monetary Authority, Fazeel Najeeb, “who has not effected any changes to rectify this situation.”

“Najeeb is known to be affiliated with the People’s Alliance (PA) party and its leader, Abdulla Yameen, the former Minister of Trade and half brother of the former President. He is said to be a guarantor of the former regime and retains tight control of the MMA,” Zuhair alleged.

“From the government’s point-of-view the MMA needs to be much more involved in the current situation, rather than the Governor being away on study leave. It has not released a single piece of regulation to address this issue.”

Islam meanwhile pointed out that the government had long been stating it intended to reduce the number of expatriates working in the Maldives – currently a third of the total population – “but we do not see this happening in practice.”

“Every day a lot of people are still coming into the country, on tourist visas from countries such as Sri Lanka and India,” he said. “There are very few genuine tourists arriving from Bangladesh, mostly they are on work permits. Why are they being allowed in without any work being attached to the work permits?”

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New hi-tech passport lab at Male’ International Airport

Amidst ongoing changes scheduled over the next few years at Male’ International Airport, authorities at the travel hub have introduced a new Forensic Document Laboratory they hope can step up detection of fake passports and other illegal documentation used to enter the the country.

As part of plans to strengthen border controls to the country, a source at the immigration department confirmed to Minivan News that the laboratory was now in place at the airport, but could not give any specifics on when it came into operation.

However, citing Immigration Controller, Sheik Ilyas Hussain Ibrahim, Haveeru yesterday reported that the system has already helped lead to the arrest of four Iraqi nationals that had allegedly tried to enter the country under forged passports following its introduction earlier this month.

The Immigration Department was unavailable for comment at time of going to press.

The lab system, which has been set up in collaboration with Australian experts, was unveiled late last month by the Maldives’ Department of Immigration and Emigration as the first technology of its kind to be used in the Maldives.

Ibrahim said during this unveiling back in October the issue of immigration within the secluded atolls of the Maldives has vitally needed addressing in order to better combat potential trafficking and people smuggling.

The new laboratory is seen as an important new tool in reducing such illegal border activities and was backed by a special training three day training session at male’s Holiday Inn. According to an immigration department statement, the training was intended to bring Immigration officers within the country further in line with both local and international security standards. Adoption of the system comes amidst growing concerns about the country’s ability to handle border control as well as the prevention of human trafficking.

Back in August, Minivan News reported how the exploitation of foreign workers is potentially rivaling the country’s fishing sector as the second most prolific source of income after tourism.

The claims, which were based on conservative estimates of Bangladeshi workers turning up at their respective commission in Male’ upon being abandoned upon arrival at the country’s main airport, came from experienced diplomat, Professor Selina Mohsin.

Mohsin, formerly Bangladeshi High Commissioner to the Maldives before finishing her assignment in July, stated that about 40 nationals would turn up every day at the Commission without the work many had been promised by certain employment brokers and working with Maldivian partners.

Most of the stranded workers are thought to have been recruited in rural areas of Bangladesh by local brokers, who would work alongside a Maldivian counterpart.

“The Bangladeshi counterpart charges the worker a minimum of US$2000, but it goes up to $US4000. This money is collected by the counterpart and divided: typically three quarters to Maldivian broker and one quarter to the Bangladeshi counterpart,” Professor Mohsin explained, prior to her departure.

In its 2010 Human Trafficking report – published less than a month after the Maldives was given a seat on the UN Human Rights Council – the State Department estimated that half the Bangladeshis in the Maldives had arrived illegally “and most of these workers are probably victims of trafficking”.

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Comment: Pigeons and slaves

Our city is not an easy place in which to live. Generally more expensive than any other capital in the region, Male’ is crowded beyond capacity. A thousand motorcycles line every road, cars without places to park at every turn, and the smog created by both suffocating any who dare to walk. Not only are our sidewalks too small, but our homes too overstuffed. Electricity, water, food; the list goes on and on.

And when it all just gets to be too much, we escape to where we can. The Artificial Beach, Jumhooree Maidhan, anywhere to get some space. Yet as I walk along stone pavement to those few clearings we have, I turn my head and look around and I do not see my countrymen. I do not see my people taking respite. As many pigeons as I see in my Republican Square, can I see foreigners crowding my spaces as well. In every direction that I turn, I am alienated in a space that is mine.

In my youth I would want to banish these usurpers. I would want these spaces cordoned off so that a National Identity Card would be required to enter this bare ground, these sanctuaries. Pigeons and foreigners both, I wanted to get rid of them. I wanted my spaces back. We deal with constant societal tension and neglect, and to demand a space for the release of such tension was my right. I ignored the tug at the back of my mind calling these thoughts racist, and refused to accept the dignity of others over the xenophobic tendencies which seem to run through my veins. But now I look back and have to ask: Is it really true? Is such constant and persistent (maybe even mild in some instances, but still ever-present) hatred so deeply rooted within our nation?

I was offended through my national pride that our national places were not ours anymore.

But maybe national pride is supposed to be more than outward patriotism. Maybe it’s working towards getting jobs for the 50 percent of youth who are without them. Maybe it’s addressing the government problems so that there are fewer foreign workers and no illegal aliens. It may even be ensuring those who remain are treated with respect and dignity. Should this not be part of our national pride? Should not all human dignity be part of our patriotism and duty?

Understanding why

But to move beyond our annoyance at them for being here and the illusion that it is a necessary annoyance, we must come to understanding.

Why are there workers in the country?

Why are they treated badly?

Why are there so many illegal aliens?

Why are more workers continually being brought in spite of this?

And how do we fix it?

Social Negligence

These foreign workers are here because there is a demand. Everything a Maldivian can do, a foreigner can do cheaper. Why can they do it cheaper? Not because they are more capable, or that all Maldivians are inherently lazy, but for the very reason they are treated badly.

They are not provided adequate housing, or basic needs such as sustenance. And when the cost going into them is so little, they can afford to offer themselves cheaply as it is their only means to survival. Fundamental human rights and levels of comfort we would demand as a basic need is so far beyond them that it is not their immediate concern. As the defenders and apologists of dictators the world over often say: What starving man thinks of rights?

But in this case we have collectively robbed them of their rights. Of their very human dignity. These men and women are brought here to live in squalid conditions and we allow it because someone has to do the job. So we justify injustice and go about our daily lives.

Why is it that people do not see, that if we just raise their basic standards of living to something that is acceptable to us, we would be able to encourage more Maldivians to enter their workforce as well? Why is it that we refuse to put a minimum wage standard for foreigners when we fought so hard to have it applied to ourselves? Why is it that even the foreign labourers that were employed by the government were only paid $50 USD a month up until recent years when it was increased to a $100 USD?

If we place a reasonable minimum wage, require basic necessities such as housing, bedding, water (to drink and wash), and food to be provided to those labourers brought in, then we even the playing field. Maldivians will be able to be competitive. As someone who owns a share in a construction company, I refuse the excuse that this will bankrupt our companies. I refuse the excuse that it is fiscally unviable. And I refuse any other excuse that would put basic human dignity and rights beyond one’s reach.

Government Negligence

The reason why there are so many illegal aliens is because people in the government (previous and current, legislative and executive) have not cared to address the situation properly. They had other more important matters, vested interests, and always the threat from the entire business community to contend with. Why fix a system that is not really broken? After all, the businesses benefit from cheap labour and a couple illegals here or there only means they will be even cheaper to hire.

While this is the reasoning behind the reality, the practical reason why illegal alien growth persists is mostly due to the quota system.

But let me explain the entire procedure first: If you want to bring a labourer, your business has to be licensed by the Ministry of Economic Development. Then you have to apply to the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Labour, explaining the projects you have and why you need the labour to begin with. This Ministry then issues you a quota of workers you can bring in after making a half-hearted attempt at hiring Maldivians you don’t really want to deal with.

When you want to bring in your labourers, you contact a broker and get the Ministry of Youth, Sports, and Labour to issue you your work permits for these people. These work permits are then shown to the Immigration Department under the Ministry of Home Affairs and visas are issued on arrival.

The quota system is slightly ridiculous for two reasons.

Firstly, as former Bangladeshi Ambassador Professor Selina Mohsin mentioned, many quotas are created with inadequate proposals and flimsy justification for the number of people needed. Excess people are then loaned out to other companies.

Secondly, conditions are so bad for workers, that when they run away, the Ministry simply reissues the company who lost them with new work permits so that they can still have their quota of people.

If we ignore the first issue as easily rectifiable with greater vigilance, we’re left with the second problem. If a company loses their employees, they are forced to put out an advertisement showing who they lost. But this still means that they are left without enough labour to complete their project. So the Ministry feels obligated to issue them new work permits without so much as a slap on the wrist, essentially allowing even more people into the country without addressing those already here.  The Immigration Department then has no choice but to offer visas to whomever new work permits are issued to.

No government administration has tried to penalise companies for losing people or for providing such inadequate housing and provision for employees. The government has not been active in trying to guarantee the rights of foreign workers, and there has been no thought of creating requirements of minimum wages, clean bedding, water for washing, and suitable sustenance for foreigners. Parliament and the Ministries have taken very little action.

The illegal hordes

The Labour Ministry’s solution was to document illegal aliens, and when people ran away from hostile work environments, they would make those here illegally take the runaway’s place. The business community revolted and we have seen little implementation of this practice since its inception.

The conditions are so bad that many would choose homelessness and destitution, begging for any work that is available so that they can survive. Many become runners for the local drug dealers and spend their days delivering these products of sin. Those who are lucky find Maldivian wives, who (as one person told me) then “feed them, shelter them, and massage their feet.”

Many who do this work for a while and make enough to return to their families in their places of origin, leaving their Maldivian wives without much recourse. This exploitation of Maldivian women caused the Immigration Department to enact regulations that ensure foreigners could provide for themselves and would not be leeches to their Maldivian partners.

But still more foreigners flee from their Maldivian masters and become illegal aliens in this country. And because they flee we bring in more and more people. Last month alone, over two thousand foreign labourers were brought into the country. At this rate, the foreign population in the Maldives will rival our own within our life time (sooner if we take into account our declining birthrate).

Dignity

To deny a person basic needs, to make him dependent, but also desperate to get away is to make that man a slave.

That what we have in this country is referred to only as human trafficking not outright slave trade is something the government should be grateful for.

We need to change and be the instruments of that change. We need to pass legislation holding companies accountable. We need to respect foreigners’ basic right to human dignity, and put forward a minimum wage that will level the playing field between Maldivians and foreigners.

When more of us work side by side with them, we will have less hostility to those who are in our spaces. What is more, fewer of them will be there, and we will be content to share something that is ours, because we will not feel overwhelmed and isolated.

National dignity and pride can only be achieved when we uphold the dignity of all of those within our borders. When we recognise our prejudices and expunge our xenophobia as something unworthy and distasteful.

http://jswaheed.com

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Comment: Can we live in paradise without our Bangladeshi workers?

In our little country we have many friends from neighboring countries. I always think about them and encounter them when I go for my frequent coffee or tea or breakfast at the various cafes, kadas and hotaas and restaurants. Most of the time, I see them in ‘hotaas’ (cafe/eatery).

It is not a surprise when you think about why there is such an influx of legal and illegal immigrant workers, and the reasons they come to Maldives

Discrimination towards certain types of manual jobs such as rubbish collection and construction labor, and a young population with no interest in such work, is one reason perhaps. But also the greedy business people who can save their pennies easily by getting cheap labor may be another cause.

No matter whether they are illegal or legal, or whichever nationality, they are in desperate conditions. They do donkey days of work and get only one holiday in the week, which of course is evident when we walk around Male’ on a Friday evening.

Whenever I enter a hotaa they usually come and ask what I need. Sometimes when I tell them cool water in Dhivehi they bring normal water and vice versa. I am not sure whether it is because they don’t understand the Dhivehi language or because they have a motive of getting satisfaction by being irritating and assertive.

Some customers talk to them in a raised voice, with threatening vulgar Dhivehi words, and treat them in a more unethical manner which is inhumane.

No wonder why many of us Maldivians find it irritating to be polite and thankful to people who serve us.

Maybe Maldivians have become such arrogant and impolite people because they may feel disgusting to thank a dirty manual laborer.

Some even avoid these friends out of consideration for hygiene. It is of no surprise that such tough men, who work like donkeys without any breaks to refresh themselves, will of course smell like goats. Moreover, not being wealthy enough to afford deodorant or good quality soap with their earnings is another reason. Or perhaps not being provided with enough freshwater to cleanse their body in their traditional bathing style in rivers, as their employers don’t like to see a fat water bill.

Strangely nobody bothers about what goes on in the kitchen of the hotaa, except when an occasional hair in a bajiyaa or a piece of boakibaa is evident while savoring the hot and spicy delicacies. Many such kitchens are infested by roaches and rodent aliens as well, and our friends never bother to kill or chase them.

Maybe they feel empathy towards such aliens in their surroundings and want to show others it is inhumane to victimise God’s creations.

Well it’s of no surprise as the hotaa is both bedroom and bathroom, as well as hotaa. In the night our friends who are not given places to sleep put tables in the hotaa together and spread a sheet on them and sleep on these tables.

Sometimes their washed clothes, including their undies, may be seen hanging on a rope in the corner of kitchen.

Well, still they are happy and continue to enjoy the day’s heat and occasional rain and the tropical climate. Maldives of course is paradise to a person who only enjoys the physical environment – but the social environment, especially in Male’, is devastatingly unsuitable for living.

My dear bondhus and bhais and machaas and mahathiyaas, without your ways and your life and your labour, how could we ever live in this Paradise?

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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Exploitation of Bangladeshi workers worth hundreds of millions, says former High Commissioner

Exploitation of foreign workers rivals fishing as the second most profitable sector of the Maldivian economy after tourism, according to conservative estimates of the number of Bangladeshi workers showing up at their commission in Male’ after being abandoned at the airport by unscrupulous employment agents.

Former Bangladeshi High Commissioner to the Maldives, Professor Selina Mohsin, who finished her assignment in July, told Minivan News that every day 40 Bangladeshi nationals were turning up at reception, “having come to the Maldives and found they have nothing to do. So naturally they come here to the High Commission.”

Most of the stranded workers were recruited in rural areas of Bangladesh by local brokers, who would work alongside a Maldivian counterpart.

“The Bangladeshi counterpart charges the worker a minimum of US$2000, but it goes up to $US4000. This money is collected by the counterpart and divided: typically three quarters to Maldivian broker and one quarter to the Bangladeshi counterpart,” Professor Mohsin explained, prior to her departure.

“Many workers sell their land, their property, even their homesteads – putting their wives in a relative’s house – and come here for employment they have been told will fetch them between $US300-400 a month. But when they arrive, they find they have no employment.”

Stranded in a foreign country and unable to speak English or Dhivehi, the workers either melt into the Bangladeshi community and become illegal workers, working for low wages in substandard conditions, or present themselves at the High Commission and beg for help.

In some cases workers are collected from the airport by the brokers and have their passports confiscated before being dumped on the streets of Male’, Professor Mohsin explains. Typically the worker arrives with a local mobile phone number – inevitably disconnected – and does not know the name of the broker.

“They eventually end up at my office,” she says, pointing to the Commission’s reception area. “Often they are in a state of shock at arriving to discover they have no employment. I try to put them in a guest house for 7-10 days and see if they can be repatriated, but many can’t and because they owe sums of money they take any job they can – sometimes US$70-80 a month.”

Taking into account the Bangladeshi broker’s cut, and based purely on the numbers of stranded expatriates presenting themselves at the high commission, indicates an employment trafficking scam worth upwards of $43.8 million year.

Even at conservative figures based on the numbers of Bangladeshi nationals presenting at the commission, this rivals the country’s US$46 million fishing industry (2007, Department of National Planning) as the country’s second largest export earner after tourism.

That could likely be just the tip of the iceberg – Professor Mohsin believes the true figure is far higher, pinpointing one operation as bringing in upwards of $100 million.

Work permit discrepancies

Under Maldivian law foreign workers arriving in the Maldives must have a work permit issued by the Immigration Department. This is obtained through an employer or agent, who must first request a foreign worker quota from the Ministry of Trade and Human Resources.

These are obtained “very easily”, Professor Muhsin contends.

“The Maldivian [side] gets into connection with the Bangladeshi brokers, gets a business permit from the Ministry of Human Resources, says they want to recruit and gets a quota for more workers than they require – if they require any at all – and then ask a Bangladeshi counterpart to bring in the workers.”

In an effort to control the flow of workers into the country, some High Commissions – such as Bangladesh – also require that work permits for their nationals be attested by the local commission before they are considered valid.

First Secretary at the Indian High Commission, Naryan Swamy, told Minivan News that the Indian High Commission ceased attesting work permits 3-4 years ago, although the policy remained in place in certain Gulf countries to reduce the exploitation of female domestic servants.

“Our major problem is not forged documents, but people who are given a rosy picture in India about working in the Maldives and want to go abroad. They might be earning US$200 in India, but are told they can earn US$400. When they arrive they get US$120-140,” Swamy says, adding that the burgeoning domestic economy in India has markedly reduced the number of workers falling into such a trap.

“On average we receive 2-3 people a day with this problem. Most of the time we can talk to the employers – usually workers are unsatisfied with the conditions.”

Where the Indian High Commission can identify the employment brokers, “we don’t give up easily,” he hinted. “If we have a case we don’t just write letters – we follow up. The system sometimes takes a long time, but we don’t give up.”

Professor Mohsin acknowlegdes that India “has a far better system than ours, and we allow far more innocent people to come through. But even in India’s case, professionals like doctors on many of the islands are treated badly and looked down on.”

However with the system of attestation in place, the importing of Bangladeshi workers now depends on forged documentation, she contends.

“I haven’t attested a single work permit since April. How are they entering? Why are they still coming at all?” she asks.

“Recently I caught one Maldivian man who was bringing in over 1800 people. I asked him, ‘what will you do with them?’ He said there were ‘many projects’. I asked him to show me the projects and he couldn’t.

“I asked him if he had cleared this with the Ministry of Human Resources, Youth and Sports. I rang to check and it had – it was attested by one of the ministries of this government.

“I signed but had questions in my mind – why were the terms and conditions so small? There should be pages and pages – for 1800 people there should be hundreds of pages, and details of the project.

“But I had doubts in my mind so declared my signature null and void within Bangladesh within 4-5 days. I checked the company – it took me months – and then I found out the whole thing was a scam totalling over US$300 million.

“Those people would have come [to Male’] had I not checked. Had I not done it, 1800 people would have sold their homes and become delinquent in the Maldives. This did not bother a Maldivian broker – hell is not good enough for the people who are doing this.”

Maldives placed on human trafficking watch-list

Most cases that arrive at the High Commission involve trafficked workers. The problem is large enough to have attracted the attention of the US State Department, which placed the Maldives on its watch-list for human trafficking following what it described as the government’s “failure to investigate or prosecute trafficking-related offenses or take concrete actions to protect trafficking victims and prevent trafficking in the Maldives.”

In its 2010 Human Trafficking report – published less than a month after the Maldives was given a seat on the UN Human Rights Council – the State Department estimated that half the Bangladeshis in the Maldives had arrived illegally “and most of these workers are probably victims of trafficking”.

It highlighted the construction and service sectors as primary offenders, and noted the prevalence of “fraudulent recruitment practices, confiscation of identity and travel documents, withholding or non-payment of wages, and debt bondage.”

Most trafficking in the country involves exploitation of foreign labour, according to Professor Mohsin, “but in extreme cases it has been for prostitution.”

After repatriating a Bangladeshi girl who had been forced into prostitution in the Maldives, Professor Mohsin ceased attesting work permits for Bangladeshi women altogether.

“I said I would allow no more women. I will not allow any more Bangladeshi women to come to the Maldives because they are used for the wrong purposes. I have even met young boys who work in houses and are physically assaulted. I have spoken to people to whom this has happened: I told one guy, just give me a complaint and I will catch the person. But he was too scared [of retaliation].”

Government complicity

Professor Muhsin acknowledged that government’s response to her outcry might be “Why is the Bangladeshi High Commissioner creating such a racket?”

“But tell me – if every day you are inundated with dozens and dozens of workers who are in a state of shock – then it becomes a very big issue for me. I have to know why they aren’t rigorous enough at the airport.”

With a single international airport funnelling foreign workers into the country, the Maldivian authorities should be able to fix the problem any time they want, Professor Mohsin contends.

“[Bangladesh] has many airports and a very porous border: we share thousands of miles with India. Some people even have houses half in Bangladesh and half in India, such was the border drawn by Sir Radcliffe. That’s why it is very easy to cross to South India and fly to the Maldives.

“But in Maldives there is only one international airport, and people have to come out of it. Tell me – if you don’t want me in your house, how can I enter? How can I enter if the door is locked?

“What I want to say is: stop them at the airport. If your database is correct, if you are rigorous, if you have scanned their passport as you say, then you at least have a copy of the passport. If you are the employer [to whom the quota is allocated] you know the broker. Nobody is taking this seriously enough.”

Response

State Minister for Foreign Affairs Ahmed Naseem said he was “very concerned” at the “strong wording” in the US State Department’s report, noting that human trafficking was “a very harsh term” to describe people brought to the Maldives by unscrupulous employers and agents.

“Anyone can get a [tourist] visa on arrival, and we don’t discriminate just because somebody is Bangladeshi,” he said.

He observed that all employment agents were registered with the Ministry of Human Resources: “I think they have a lot of knowledge about the problem and know exactly what is going on,” he said.

“We are researching the issues mentioned in the [State Department’s] 2010 report. There are a lot of illegals here and not enough jobs – we’re looking into the mater.”

Hussein Ismail, Deputy Minister for Human Resources, claimed it was “impossible” to enter the Maldives with forged documents, “because whatever employment approval we issue is electronically copied to immigration and checked against a person’s name. The database is shared, so they know when an employment visa has not been issued.”

When a work permit is approved it must be used within 50 days, “so there will be [arrivals] pending,” he noted, even if a High Commission were to cease attesting work permits.

Rights and treatment

The rights and treatment of Bangladeshi workers – including those employed legally – remains an issue for the Maldives.

“I once had somebody call me to say he was surrounded by 500 Bangladeshis because their salaries had not been paid for one year,” recalls Professor Mohsin. “I called the employer – I was very annoyed. He said to me: ‘I will not pay their salaries. What are you going to do about it?”

When workers fell into such a situation, she explains, they had little legal recourse or judicial instruments, and any civil case was conducted in Dhivehi to the bewilderment of the worker – even if they could find a lawyer.

“It is incumbent on the government of the Maldives to provide legal services to those who have been deprived of their rights to their salary – it should not be my business,” Professor Mohsin says.

Even the Immigration Department does not employ a Bangla speaker, despite the scope of the problem and their contribution to the economy, relying instead on the Bangladeshi High Commission to provide interpreters. An immigration official confided to Minivan News that while they were aware of problems with brokers, the language barrier made it difficult to determine what was going on when the worker arrived. Instead, he said, the Department relied on glimmers obtained from workers who approached authorities after they had acquired some Dhivehi, often when departing the country.

Professor Mohsin said she was at a loss to describe the abysmal treatment of Bangladeshi workers in the Maldives, given the centuries of close cultural association between the two countries.

“Historically things like tobacco smoking and rice eating were all learned from Bengal, because the Maldives had nothing but cowry shells,” Professor Mohsin says. “That was the Maldives’ only export – what would traders bring back in return? Rice, textiles, tobacco, wood… one of the country’s rulers was even a Bengali princess.

“I find it very painful now that a Maldivian coming from such a tiny country, and dependent on others for food, can look down on Bangladeshi workers who are doing all the menial work that no Maldivian will do. Why have they changed suddenly? What is this ethos that allows the country to employ workers from other countries and treat them so badly?”

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Report condemns Maldives for inaction on human trafficking

The Maldives has been placed on the US State Department watch-list for human trafficking, following the country’s failure to “investigate or prosecute trafficking-related offenses or take concrete actions to protect trafficking victims and prevent trafficking in the Maldives.”

The State Department’s 2010 Human Trafficking report, which comes less than a month after the Maldives was given a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, is scathing of government inaction, particularly regarding forced labour and exploitation of Bangladeshi nationals.

“An unknown number of the 110,000 foreign workers currently working in the Maldives – primarily in the construction and service sectors – face fraudulent recruitment practices, confiscation of identity and travel documents, withholding or non-payment of wages, or debt bondage,” the report noted.

“Diplomatic sources estimate that half of the 35,000 Bangladeshis in the Maldives went there illegally and that most of these workers are probably victims of trafficking.”

The report noted that even legal workers were vulnerable to conditions of forced labor, and that the Maldives did not provide services such as shelter, counseling, medical care, or legal aid to foreign or Maldivian victims of trafficking.

The government’s “general policy” for dealing with trafficking victims was deportation, the report said, “and it did not provide foreign victims with legal alternatives to their removal to countries where they might face hardship or retribution. On an ad-hoc basis, it provided extremely short-term housing for migrants immediately before deportation.”

The Maldives did not comply with minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking in persons, however the US State Department conceded that the government “is making significant efforts to do so.”

“Despite these efforts, the government lacks systematic procedures for identifying victims of trafficking among vulnerable populations, and during the reporting period it did not investigate or prosecute trafficking-related offenses or take concrete actions to protect trafficking victims and prevent trafficking in the Maldives,” it said, placing the Maldives on a ‘tier 2 watch list’ alongside Afghanistan, Brunei, Laos, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Trafficking offenders

Little progress had been made to identify and prosecute trafficking offenders, the report noted, classing three types: “families that subject domestic servants to forced labor; employment agents who bring low-skilled migrant workers to the Maldives under false terms of employment and upon payment of high fees; and employers who subject the migrants to conditions of forced labor upon arrival.”

The report acknowledged “a small number” of women from Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, China, the Philippines, Eastern Europe, and former Soviet Union countries that had been recruited “for forced prostitution in Male”, while underage Maldivian girls were reportedly also trafficked to Male from other islands for involuntary domestic servitude, “a corruption of the widely acknowledged practice where families send Maldivian girls to live with a host family in Male for educational purposes.”

However in numercial terms, the bulk of country’s human trafficking revolved around illegal recruitment of migrant workers, mostly from Bangladesh, who paid on average between US$1,000 to US$4,000 in recruitment fees in order to migrate to the Maldives, potentially indebting them to an employer or agent and making them vulnerable to forced labor.

Limited enforcement

The government had made “limited” efforts to enforce anti-human trafficking laws during the last year, the report said, noting that while the country did not have explicit laws prohibiting human trafficking, the Constitution forbade forced labour and slavery.

“However, the government did not investigate or prosecute any trafficking cases and the only prescribed penalty for labor trafficking offenses is a fine,” it observed.

It noted that the Labor Tribunal, created as part of the 2008 Employment Act, heard eight cases involving foreign workers whose wages had not been paid, but lacked the legal authority to enforce its decision.

“In addition, employment tribunal members and employees expressed concerns about their ability to resolve cases involving foreign workers because all their proceedings were conducted in [Dhivehi],” it added.

Moreover, the report said that the Maldives may have “inappropriately incarcerated, fined, or otherwise penalised” unlawfully trafficked persons because of a lack of comprehensive victim identification procedures.

“The government did not conduct any anti-trafficking or educational campaigns and it did not take steps to create an inter-agency structure – such as a committee or plan of action – for coordination on anti-trafficking matters,” it said, adding that government additionally made no effort to reduce demand for forced labor on the islands.

It noted that in 2010 the Maldives had enacted a provision requiring all employers to use employment agents, and recommended it take steps to ensure that employers and labor brokers “were not abusing labour recruitment or sponsorship processes in order to subject migrant workers to forced labour.”

Response

President of the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM), Ahmed Saleem, said the US State Department’s report did not reflect well on the country.

“This is something the government had not believed was happening in the Maldives [until recently],” he said.

“This doesn’t reflect well on us, and it’s an issue that has to be addressed. I’m glad the issue of trafficking has been recognised.”

Saleem acknowledged a deeper “cultural issue” concerning the exploitation of Bangladeshi expatriates, one he noted “is getting worse on a daily basis.”

“Usually Maldivians are very tolerant of expats coming and working here,” he observed.

He added that the commission was currently compiling a report on human trafficking in the Maldives, and noted that while the State Department’s report was highly critical of the Maldives, the US itself had committed “gross human rights violations”, and “should hold itself to the same standards to which it holds other countries.”

“They should also expect criticism,” he said.

Introducing the report, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted that 2010 was the first time the United States had included itself in the rankings,

“The United States takes its first-ever ranking not as a reprieve but as a responsibility to strengthen global efforts against modern slavery, including those within America. This human rights abuse is universal, and no one should claim immunity from its reach or from the responsibility to confront it,” she said.

“Huge scams”

Bangladeshi High Commissioner Professor Selina Mohsin said “unscrupulous brokers” were bringing Bangladeshi nationals into the country by photocopying legitimate work visas – bearing her signature -“hundreds of times”, which authorities were continuing to accept at the border.

“I’ve tried to meet the Human Resources Minister [Hassan Latheef] and ask him to stop accepting photocopies of work permits,” she said.

“I haven’t signed a single work permit since the beginning of April – how is it workers are still coming into the Maldives? Just today I found a copy of my signature on a photocopied work permit. Unless the original is brought over by the employee, we can’t stop this,” she said, suggesting there was “some problem” occurring at either the labour ministry or immigration.

“All they have to do is stop letting [illegal expatriates] into the country. It is ridiculous that this is happening – why can’t the government only accept original work permits?”

Prof Mohsin said the situation was a result of brokers and employers, both in the Maldives and overseas, running “huge scams” reaching up to several hundred million US dollars.

“I just tried to have a Bangladeshi agent deported – I caught him almost red-handed – but his Maldivian friends have taken him to court so he can stay in the country,” she said, noting that the case was still ongoing.

Few of the local authorities had Bangla speakers, she noted, making communication an issue as well. For example, the employment tribunal was conducting cases in Dhivehi and the expatriates involved could not understand what was going on, she said.

“It should be the government providing interpreters, rather than us,” she claimed. “In places like the UK there are policemen who speak other languages.”

When workers arrived and became unemployed, “they can’t be deported because that costs money, and if there’s no employment, people turn to crime,” she noted.

Prof Mohsin was also critical of HRCM, commenting that she “hardly saw [Saleem] anywhere. If he is invisible, what use is it in having a Human Rights Commission?”

Minister for Human Resources Hassan Latheef had not responded to Minivan News at time of press.

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Rogue recruitment agencies juggling labour quotas to illegally traffic workers

Rogue recruitment agencies in countries like Bangladesh are bringing workers into the Maldives on the labour quotas of one company before ‘reselling’ them to another party on their arrival in the country, the Immigration department has revealed.

In some cases the workers will even arrive in the Maldives having been told they will be working in a country like Malaysia, Chief Immigration Officer Hassan Khaleel told Minivan News.

“For example, in one case some waiters were recruited and told work they would be working in a resort, but were made to work in a restaurant in Male’,” he said, explaining that many trafficked workers were “uneducated and illiterate” and did not understand their contract or letter of appointment.

It was quite difficult for immigration to determine if someone had been trafficked on their arrival “because be don’t have a Bangladeshi speaker”, he noted.

“After they work a for while and gain a grasp of Dhivehi it is sometimes possible to interview them on their departure,” he said.

Local agencies were not always aware the trafficking had taken place, Khaleel explained, as they had just requested the employee from the overseas counterpart.

There were also reports of Bangladeshi workers arriving at the airport and not being met by anyone, in which case they would travel to Male’ where they would meet other labourers, and simply start working.

Controller of Immigration Illyas Hussain told Miadhu yesterday that workers were sometimes forced to work for no pay until they were sold on to another party. The practice was rife in the fisheries and shipping sectors, he noted, calling on recruitment agencies to respect the rights of the workers they imported.

The immigration department would cease issuing visas to expatriate workers without work permits and employment contracts, he added.

The Human Resources Ministry and the Maldives Police Service have meanwhile launched an operation to find and deport illegal workers in the atolls. The ministry estimates there may be 16,000 illegal workers across the country.

Deputy Minister Hussein Ismail told Haveeru earlier this week that the ministry had already received a list of 30 illegal workers in Addu Atoll.

In April a report on the Maldives in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) review of the Convention on Preventing and Combating Trafficking of Women and Children for Prostitution has highlighted the Maldives as a destination country for human trafficking, “where the primary form of trafficking is forced labour.”

The SAARC report, funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and produced by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), suggested that human trafficking in the Maldives “is presumably is associated with the country’s socio-economic status as the most developed South Asian country, and its reliance on the migration of foreign workers to support sectors such as tourism and construction.”

President of the Human Rights Commission for the Maldives (HRCM), Ahmed Saleem, said at the time that human trafficking was “a modern form of slavery”, and that while the government had acknowledge the existence of the crime “overall efforts to [confront] it are insignificant.”

“The commission is convinced that this is a major human rights issue and that is why we have begun a comprehensive study we hope to complete as soon as possible,” he said.

HRCM said today that the report was several months away from completion, “and had decided to get the facts right before saying anything.”

Speaking yesterday at a seminar organised by the High Commission of Bangladesh in the Maldives, Special Envoy of the President Ibrahim Hussain Zaki said the government needed to strengthen labour laws and protect the rights of expatriate workers in the Maldives, both in and outside the workplace.

He also noted the contributions made by the Bangladesh to the development of the Maldives, and the large number of Bangladeshi workers in the Maldives who were playing “a vital role” in delivering the government’s pledges.

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Vice President urges legislation to combat human trafficking

Vice President Dr Mohamed Waheed spoke yesterday at a meeting on human trafficking in the South Asia region, and called for an effort from law enforcement agencies, government authorities, civil society and international organisations to combat human trafficking in the region.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) produced a report on the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Convention on Preventing and Combating Trafficking of Women and Children for Prostitution, where they said the Maldives is a country “where the primary form of trafficking is forced labour.”

Dr Waheed noted although the problem is global, Asia has the highest index of human trafficking.

The vice president said there was a concern that “human trafficking could become a growing problem in our country,” and noted the suggestions made by the ADB and IOM.

He said the government is working on combating the issue, and has mechanisms in place to repatriate victims who are brought to the Maldives.

He said there needed to be a more vigorous effort to form legislation and governmental machinery to combat trafficking.

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Human trafficking an emerging issue for the Maldives

A report on the Maldives in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) review of the Convention on Preventing and Combating Trafficking of Women and Children for Prostitution has highlighted the Maldives as a destination country for human trafficking, “where the primary form of trafficking is forced labour.”

The SAARC report, funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and produced by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), suggested that human trafficking in the Maldives “is presumably is associated with the country’s socio-economic status as the most developed South Asian country, and its reliance on the migration of foreign workers to support sectors such as tourism and construction.”

“The Maldives is a destination country for migrant workers trafficked from neighbouring Bangladesh and India for forced labour, and to a lesser extent women from Sri Lanka, Thailand, India and China who are trafficked to Male’ for commercial sexual exploitation,” the report said, adding that “there is also some existence of some inter-island trafficking of Maldivian girls to the capital for domestic servitude.”

The country’s main offenders were “registered employment agents who fraudulently recruit low-skilled migrant workers and subject them to conditions of forced labour once they are in the country.”

“The other major offending group are wealthy families who subject domestic servants to forced labour,” the report noted.

The trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation was less marked than in other countries, the report noted, compared alongside the levels of forced labour, however “women of Chinese, Thai, Sri Lankan, and Filipino origin come to Male’ on the weekends from Colombo and some of them engage in commercial sex with the local migrant worker population.”

“In interviews, officials also spoke of occasions where they suspected cases of commercial sexual exploitation particularly when a large number of young women, sometimes of Eastern European origin, travel together with a single man to an exclusive private tourist resort for a short duration. [In this instance] there is little immigration officials can do in the absence of a complaint or some indication of abuse.”

IOM’s National Programme Officer Nishat Chowdhry presented the report at a meeting today in the Nalahiya Hotel, part of a review of the convention which until now has excluded male victims and crimes as forced labour.

“The scope of the convention is limited,” Chowdhry said. “Other aspects of trafficking, including for forced labour, human transplants and servitude have not been covered by convention,” she said. “There is growing consensus that the time is right to review the convention.”

President of the Human Rights Commission for the Maldives (HRCM) Ahmed Saleem described human trafficking as “a modern form of slavery with 800,000 estimated victims, mostly women and children.”

Saleem observed that a recent US State Department report into human trafficking had criticised the Maldives government for failure “to fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking”, but noted that the government had now acknowledged the existence of the crime “even if overall efforts to [confront] it are insignificant.”

“The commission is convinced that this is a major human rights issue and that is why we have begun a comprehensive study we hope to complete as soon as possible,” he said.

Vice President Dr Mohamed Hassan Waheed, speaking at the event, noted that while the convention focused on one the “most serious transnational crimes against dignity and human rights”, there were “serious shortcomings both in coverage and implementation of this convention.”

“Specific limitations include the exclusion of male victims, prostitution excluding other forms of trafficking such as forced labour, sex slavery and other slave-like practices. I am concerned that even though the convention has been in force for fours years, it has not been adequately implemented and enforced in the region.”

The convention carried “inadequate provision for victim protection and rehabilitation,” he said.

“I am especially concerned about the trafficking of children, especially girl children. The effects of sexual exploitation of children are profound, maybe permanent. Sexual, physical and emotional development are stunted, self-esteem and confidence are undermined, and sexually exploited children become especially vulnerable to the effects of physical and verbal violence, drugs, sexually transmitted diseases. We are concerned that human trafficking is becoming a growing problem in our country.”

An industry driven “by greed and brutal disregard for human rights”, human trafficking “has become a worldwide multi-billion dollar industry,” Dr Hassan said.

“The problem is global but some of the worst forms are found in Asia, where more than a million people are exploited each year. Trafficking on this level cannot escape the attention of national and local law enforcement authorities and I would like to call on concerned authorities and counterparts in our neighbouring countries to enforce these laws and accept our obligations under this convention.”

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