Tag: Rear Admiral Abu Saeed Mohamed Abdul Awal

Police arrest 47 Bangladeshi nationals after raid on unregistered security firm

A total of 47 Bangladeshi nationals working for a local security firm were seized on Thursday by the Department of Immigration as part of a wider crackdown on unregistered migrant workers.

The detention of the expatriate workers comes after police late last year reported a “day-by-day” increase in human trafficking in the Maldives.  The Maldives Police Service’s claims were based on a surge in the numbers of illegal expatriate workers found in the country.

Assistant Controller of the Immigration Department Ibrahim Ashraf told Minivan News that the 47 Bangladesh nationals were all apprehended following a raid of a company providing security guards that was not registered to employ foreigners.

Ashraf claimed that the company the men had been working for had been in operation for 10 -12 years, yet no information could be found on its operations.

“During the raid, we found 47 Bangladeshi nationals all wearing security uniforms along with equipment like walkie talkies and badges,” he said. “They were not registered for this work and we could not find any records linked to the company.”

While the Department of Immigration has said that it was not cracking down specifically on security firms employing expatriate workers, Ashraf added that concerns remained about ensuring the industry had correctly licensed its foreign staff.

“Until recently, the Ministry of Human Resources did not provide [expatriate] work quotas to security firms,” he said. “There has been a growing demand among local businesses to hire security services. The Ministry of Human Resources has therefore begun issuing quotas for hiring expatriates in security services.”

Ashraf added that the Immigration Department’s concerns were not focused just on security firms, but instead on companies from various industries that had failed to obtain and then correctly register staff.

“Right now we are looking for expatriate workers on the run. We have received a lot of reports from employers about staff going missing,” he said. “This is especially true in the outer atolls, where we are getting complaints about unregistered employees travelling between islands.”

Ashraf claimed that the 47 Bangladeshi nationals who had been detained Thursday would not necessarily be deported if a sponsor could be found to provide employment and accommodation for them.

“We will try and give the employees the opportunity to stay here and work if a sponsor is willing to regularise them,” he said.

High Commission

The High Commission of Bangladesh in Male’ said it had been made aware of the 47 detained workers, who had been seized for not having proper documentation.

The commission said it was often notified regarding such cases, and was presently awaiting travel documentation for the detained expatriates before considering possible deportation.

The High Commissioner of Bangladesh, Rear Admiral Abu Saeed Mohamed Abdul Awal, said today that he believed workers from the country were regularly being brought to the Maldives to perform unskilled work, usually in the construction industry.  Awal alleged that upon arriving, expatraites from Bangladesh were suffering from the practices of “bad employers”.

“This is a real problem that is happening here, there have been many raids over the last year on unskilled [expatriate] workers who are suffering because of the companies employing them. They are not being given proper salaries and are paying the price for some of these employers,” he said.

Rear Admiral Awar added that it was the responsibility of employers to ensure expatriate staff had the proper documentation and suitable living standards.

Concerns about the treatment of expatriates from across the South Asia region were also shared by Indian High Commissioner Dynaneshwar Mulay. Speaking to Minivan News last month, Mulay raised concerns over the general treatment of Indian expatriates in the Maldives, particularly by the country’s police and judiciary.

Mulay claimed that alongside concerns about the treatment of some Indian expatriates in relation to the law, there were significant issues relating to “basic human rights” that needed to be addressed concerning expatriates from countries including Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Mulay’s comments were made following an alleged attack on a Indian resort worker, who was reported to have been struck with a hammer and mugged while staying in a hotel in Male’. The attack was allegedly committed by a former employee of the same resort.

Big business

Beyond concerns about the basic human rights of foreign employees in the country, labour trafficking is also believed to represent a significant national economic issue.

An ongoing police investigation into labour trafficking in the Maldives last year uncovered an industry worth an estimated US$123 million, eclipsing fishing (US$46 million in 2007) as the second greatest contributor of foreign currency to the Maldivian economy after tourism.

The authorities’ findings echo concerns first raised by former Bangladeshi High Commissioner Dr Selina Muhsin, reported by Minivan News in August 2010. The comments by Mushin were made shortly after the country was placed on the US State Department’s Tier 2 watchlist for human trafficking.

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Expatriate “troubles” exacerbated by lack of border policy, says immigration head

The Maldives’ Controller of Immigration has claimed the country must address previous failures to adopt an immigration policy if it wants to protect and control an expatriate workforce that he says is estimated to at least equal the number of domestic labourers.

Abdulla Shahid, appointed back in February as the nation’s immigration chief, said that a lack of any kind of immigration controls or policy in the Maldives had left valuable foreign workers facing “inhumane” treatment and a host of other problems once inside the country.

Speaking to Minivan News, Shahid said that despite the country’s long history of bringing skilled and unskilled foreign workers to its shores reaching as far back as the 1950’s, both the current and previous government had failed to put any measures in place to outline numbers of foreign workers or their employment conditions.

Both Shahid and the High Commissioner of Bangladesh to the Maldives, Rear Admiral Abu Saeed Mohamed Abdul Awal, have claimed that authorities from both countries were now trying to devise a new legal framework that they claim is needed to protect the rights of foreign workers.

Earlier this week, Qatar-based newspaper the Gulf Times reported that the Maldives was seeking to bring in a number of public procurement experts from Bangladesh to assist with the country’s climate change adaption plans, as well as an additional 20,000 people for employment in the construction, textiles and tourism industries.

However, Shahid said that he was not aware of any such figure being set by himself or Maldivian authorities, adding that the country needed to first begin putting in place measures to ensure the numbers of immigrant workers were controlled, while also protecting their rights.

According to the controller of immigration, the number of foreign workers coming to the Maldives on an annual basis was estimated to have doubled in recent years, with the number of legal immigrants reaching 92,000 as of this month – up from 87,000 on March 1, 2011. Migrant labourers constitute almost a third of the Maldives’ total population.

While expat growth between 2009 and 2010 was deemed to be “not significant”, Shahid said he believed that a host of new infrastructure projects in areas such as airport construction and new home creation proposed by the government was likely to lead to growing interest in the country by foreign labourers.

“My argument is – should we send workers back? We have a population of 300,000 people here in the Maldives and its local workforce, I think, is equal to the number of foreigners employed here,” he said. “I’m not saying they are a nuisance; in my view, expats are a necessity here in the Maldives and without them many businesses and shops would struggle and be put out of business.”

Shahid claimed that after having spent two months in his current position as the national immigration controller, he believed it was now vital to look at other countries that have employed migration policies and see how the Maldives might follow.

“I’ve seen in Australia and the US that there are policies on immigrants and expats,” he said. “For instance, they will set out a system quota, say for 300 professionals in a specific field, but we do not do that. Both the previous government and ourselves have not done a comprehensive policy review.”

However, the immigration controller claimed that it was vital for authorities to first decide on an actual policy for foreign workers before they can begin reviewing the effectiveness of controls.

“What is this policy? What I am saying is that we need to produce a plan of action for immigration,” he said. “Do we decide to bring in an immigration policy or not? Without immigration a lot of businesses and shops would have to close down.”

Amidst these possible economic concerns, Shahid added that it would be vital to formulate and then have the Majlis agree on an immigration policy, such as setting an annual cap on the number of expats allowed to enter the country.

He claimed that greater control would, in theory, ensure stricter regulation in terms of forcing employers to provide better quality living standards to their expat workers, conditions that he said were known to be “inhumane” in certain cases.

The immigration controller said that an estimated 42,000 were working illegally in the country as of last year; a figure he claimed that if correct, would have probably risen again since.

According to Shahid, previous plans to try and slow down the influx of foreign workers had not worked.

However, along with trying to outline a national immigration plan, Shahid denied that ongoing uncertainty over the future of a deal with Malaysia-based mobile security firm Nexbis – involving installing an advanced border control system to collect and store biometric data on expatriate workers – had added to immigration concerns. In January this year, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) ordered a halt on a government contract between the Department of Immigration and Malaysian mobile security firm Nexbis, claiming that there were instances where corruption may have occurred.

Facing political pressure ahead of February’s local council elections, President Mohamed Nasheed decided to uphold the ACC’s request that the roll-out of the technology be postponed. Nexbis responded that it would be taking legal action against parties in the Maldives, claiming that speculation over allegations of potential corruption was “politically motivated” in nature.

Shahid was not convinced the delays were playing into the hands of unscrupulous employers though.

“This issue [with the Nexbis deal] is not really a problem, we have only one issue with an immigrant who got through border control illegally,” Shahid said. “All other workers have come with the proper documents and the required work sponsor. However, it is after they arrive here that things go wrong and the problems start.”

Based himself in the capital of Male’, High Commissioner of Bangladesh, Rear Admiral Abu Saeed Mohamed Abdul Awal, said Bangladeshi authorities had not approved any figures on the number of local workers to be sent to the Maldives.

By contrast, Awal claimed that Bangladeshi government was working “closely” with their Maldivian counterparts over the issue of manpower and ensuring better regulatory control for workers coming to the country. Awal also stressed that it would be vital to ensure potential loopholes in employment laws were not being exploited by employers and recruitment agencies.

“A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is under consideration with the Maldives government to provide better controls on immigration,” he said. “Employment must take place under proper conditions and a legal framework, this has not been happening as much in the past.”

According to Awal, although the prospect of the MOU was being seen as an encouraging development between the two nations, setting out new regulations on foreign worker numbers was an “evolving process” that needed to be implemented properly as well as come under long-term reviews and scrutiny.

“We are working closely with various departments on this,” he said. “Any regulations that may follow would need to be overseen properly or the same problems will continue. Potential loopholes have to be addressed and should not be exploited.”

Last year, Minivan News reported that the exploitation of foreign workers was believed to rival fishing as the second most profitable sector of the Maldivian economy after tourism. The claims were based on 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 2010, 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.”

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