The untold story of Indian migrants' travails in the Gulf countries

Several thousands of Indian-origin workers in the Gulf are left to fend for themselves in the absence of valid documents and job security. Denied access to healthcare, human rights and proper legal status, their daily battle with the challenges of living and earning a livelihood needs to be disseminated so as to bring pressure on the system to bring about required reforms.

Journalist and migrant-rights researcher Rejimon Kuttappan has reported extensively on the issues of these workers as a journalist in Oman for over a decade. His reportage on trafficked workers in the Oman-United Arab Emirates (UAE) border caught the eyes of government officials who forced him to leave Oman in April 2017.

In his recent book, 'Undocumented: Stories of Indian Migrants in the Arab Gulf', Kuttappan takes us through some of the stories of individual migrants, each of them embodying a saga of struggle and perseverance. Kuttapan spoke to The Leaflet about the concerns raised in his book, and how he brought them to light. 

Excerpts from the interview:

TL: Your book is titled 'Undocumented' and you have spoken about often hearing the repeated stories of those migrants who become successful. Can you tell us more about the choice of the subject matter? What do you mean here by "undocumented" in the Gulf?

Ans: Firstly, the people who went in the dhows and the Persian urus (boats), they were also undocumented. They didn't even have a passport or any valid documents but they were welcomed by the-then Gulf governments back in the 1960s. These were the people who built Dubai and other Arab cities.

When we claim that we have progressed a lot in talking of human rights, democratic conditions, work conditions etc., if you look at the times now in 2021, if a migrant worker becomes undocumented either by design or by fate, then he is perceived to be an 'illegal' worker who will be jailed, or deported. He doesn't get any health access, nor legal or consular access and he even has to struggle to prove his identity in his home country's embassies.

If any undocumented Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi steps into his home country's embassy, they will first be asked to prove that they are actually Indian or Pakistani or Bangladeshi. While working in the Gulf countries, I saw that most challenges were faced by the undocumented workers.

It takes seconds to become undocumented. Just go to your employer if you haven't been paid two or three months' salaries and ask them to pay your salary; if the employer is not a nice person he can just tell the worker to get lost, he can tear up the passport and file an absconding case. From that moment, the worker becomes undocumented.

You need a two-year visa to be in any Gulf country. Once the visa expires, it is the responsibility of the employer to renew the visa. If he doesn't renew it, you automatically become undocumented. And if you overstay for one year, you have to pay around Rs.1.25 lakhs as an overstay fine, just to leave that country. Becoming undocumented in Europe or America is not the same as in the Gulf, because the latter practises kafala, which is a type of bonded labour system. Even a documented worker has limited rights, so if you are undocumented things are much worse.

And that is what my area of focus has been. Once I got a case where I had to speak to the embassy to prove that this guy is Indian. The embassy agreed that he's Indian only if he has actually been given papers. And we were trying our best to make some papers to prove that this guy is Indian. The issue was that back home, his family was not interested in his return. That is the problem. What will he do? He's undocumented.

TL: You mention the kafala system as one of the key reasons behind the exploitation. Can you describe how this is linked to the struggles and challenges of being an undocumented migrant worker?

Ans: A documented worker becomes undocumented only because of the kafala system which is a restrictive system that exploits the worker more. Now the kafala system doesn't have a direct role; it's more between employer and employee. It's not written anywhere. It's not in Sharia, it's not in labour law. But it's been in practice for decades now. Because they (Gulf nations) feel that a worker should always be obligated to the employer, should stay with the employer; otherwise, he could run away with the employer's money or business and his secrets. So, it's a bonded labour system.

The moment you land in any Arab Gulf country, the employer will take your passport, your qualifications' and your academic certificates. They will say that they will keep it in their office safely because you will be moving around and if you lose those papers, then it would be a big problem for them.

The ILO (International Labour Organization) Convention C-29 brought out in 1930 says that one of the signs of forced labour is holding back the travel documents, academic qualifications and certificates because you don't have the freedom of movement. So if somebody dies back in India or Pakistan and you want to move back or return, you as a worker have to wait for your employer to sign the exit-papers or he has to approve and release the passport. So when he holds your passport and personal documents, you will be agreeing to whatever conditions he puts. If you have to work for 10 hours on only 9 hours' pay, you'll comply. If he demands you to stay one more year with him or else he will not give you a no-objection certificate, you will comply. So all kinds of such exploitations and restrictions have to be faced under the Kafala.

That's for documented workers. For an undocumented worker, this doesn't apply because he's like a leftover worker. He won't be staying with the employer. If there's some kind of dispute this guy will run out, or this guy will be kicked out. Every Gulf country has a pocket of undocumented workers. Now if you hire a documented worker, you have to pay rent, you have to provide him with a house rent allowance, you have to provide health insurance, you have to provide food allowance, and so on. Thus employers will prey on this undocumented worker who will be paid only $5 per day, and they don't have to take care of his house or food or health insurance, and everything. In India, this is what we call 'footloose' labour, the inter-state migrants, daily wage workers, and casual labour.

I have written in my book about how this system works, using the example of how Oman was building an airport which is now its biggest airport. Amidst the construction, atleast 1,200 undocumented workers were raided by the Oman government police itself. So who hired them? It all boils down to sub-contracts.

Then, another type of undocumented worker is called 'free visa'. For instance, there will be an employer somewhere inside rural areas, who will sponsor a visa after taking a huge sum of money from the worker through the agent and thereafter this worker will be allowed to work anywhere for free. So a worker may get to the $100 earning mark for example, but if they have more time and if they are willing to work for more time in different places, they can earn an additional $50 bonus. So the worker will think that free visa is a good thing. But interestingly, every Arab country has a rule that you have to work only for that person under whom you are employed, not for a different employer, which is again, a foreigner. So if you have been employed by A, you are not supposed to work under Employer B, which is against the kafala. As a result, when the worker gets caught working for Employer B, the other employer can accuse him of running away from his original place of employment, by alleging that he ran away from me, he was hired for me, etc. And this employee will be treated as an undocumented labourer, and then jailed or deported, empty-handed.

TL: How did you manage to track these people?

Ans: I joined a small newspaper as a sub-editor in 2006, in Oman, and after two and a half years of working there I got hired for a big newspaper (The Times of Oman), which is our oldest newspaper in the region. It is the oldest English newspaper there, running over 48 years. I was hired by that big newspaper to do Indian community stories. Because, you know, in the Gulf it is Indians who have the habit of buying newspapers, reading newspapers, and they don't buy English papers but they buy the Arabic newspaper.

The Arabs have their own stories, and they have a different kind of journalism. There are no big stories, and they would be 'good' stories, because it's a monarchical system, so we would have stories like press releases of the government. After reporting on a day-by-day basis on smaller stories, such as on somebody who has been hospitalized, someone not having money for food, I gradually shifted towards doing more policy-centered stories. This is where I developed an interest in focusing on stories of migrant workers. Then, I came across the ILO convention on forced labour, and I ended up reporting on such issues, and till today I get phone calls with leads on undocumented workers seeking help.

TL: The book also talks about the plight of women who are trafficked, as you delve into the stories of Jumaila and Sushmitha. Often, we hear about incidents in the news regarding women domestic workers being mistreated by Arab employers. But I wanted to hear from you, how do you think this trafficking takes place? What are the options available to women, if any?

Ans: Before 2014, the problem of women's trafficking was very high in number. In my experience, the Union Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) started to work properly under Sushma Swaraj's tenure after the government brought in the new scheme called "e-migrate", a policy allowing an Indian to migrate only through government knowledge. So how it works is that if an Arab employer wants 100 Indian workers, he has to go to the Indian Embassy and show his credentials and in turn, the embassy will verify the credentials, and if the embassy finds that the employer has a suitable project, then his application will be shared with the MEA. Then the MEA will share this application with registered recruitment agencies.

Presently, there are 1,600 registered recruitment agencies in India, but if you step into any town or any metropolitan city, you can find hundreds of unregistered agencies such as for studying abroad or working abroad. These are the guys who lead to a bulk of human trafficking. So this is how the system has to work. In addition to that, for the recruitment of nurses, we have six registered state and semi-state run agencies and Indian nurses can be recruited strictly only through this. Otherwise, it is not possible.

Now, there was a person from Kerala in Kuwait, who was taking Rs.25 lakh per candidate for recruiting nurses. Once this was exposed, authorities decided that it had to be through State-run agencies or semi-State run agencies. Other than this, India started to sign certain memoranda of understanding (MoU) with different countries. So we have MoUs with Oman, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, among others. Now anybody can migrate to the UAE. Any woman can go on a visit. Later, the visa expires, that is after 45 days or 90 days, and she has to exit the country. Meanwhile, the agents will arrange a job elsewhere, and the woman can show that she has gotten a job in Saudi Arabia or a job in Oman. So the UAE government allows her to go to Saudi Arabia or Oman from the UAE.

Now, what happens here is that everything is legal according to the country. If I am an Omani or Arab employer and I need a visa, then the government will allow me. Then I will give that visa to the manpower supplying agency which is registered there in Oman by the government which has the license to supply workers. So, I will give the visa, pay the money for the visa, and the manpower supply agencies will sell this visa and hand it over to the agent and the agent will give this visa to the woman concerned.

She will thus enter another Arab country without the knowledge of the Indian embassy.

So without the knowledge of the Indian Embassy in Oman, she can take another route to the UAE and enter Oman. That is how trafficking happens. If an Indian woman directly goes to Oman on a domestic worker visa, then the Indian embassy alone can process that. But without the knowledge of the Indian embassy, she can take another route to Oman, and there is no job security, no deposit, and no way to track her.

TL: What is the situation in the post-COVID scenario for the migrant workers there?

Ans: Unfortunately, being an undocumented worker, one doesn't have any proper health access, and you can even be considered a super-spreader by the governments. So what the Gulf countries have done is constantly extend their amnesty schemes and state that whomsoever is an undocumented worker, he or she doesn't have to pay any fine but can just get out from this country. They tell people to leave, because they want their countries to be "safe".

Recently, 900 workers were stranded, of which at least 500 were undocumented. They didn't have any valid passports or valid visas. There still exist such people and their situation is the worst. Earlier, they mandated that valid documentation was needed to get vaccinated. Now, they are saying that, if you don't have a valid document, you can just step into a place, without showing anything to get the vaccine. But in reality, anybody who is undocumented will not go to a government clinic and get vaccinated because you get tracked. You will have to show either the old passport number or at least you have to give the phone number. Just like the Aarogya Setu app, there is an app and you will be surveilled; so if you're undocumented and if the government knows that you are undocumented and didn't make use of the amnesty, then you will be deported.

Another thing is that once you are deported on the basis of being undocumented, you will get banned for five years. So you won't be able to return to the country.

The job opportunities are also very low, compared to pre-COVID times and even here, the salaries have taken a big hit. If someone earned $100 pre-COVID, they can earn only $70 post-COVID. Further, only limited airlines are flying from India to these countries, such as the Vande Bharat mission. The cost of tickets would be upwards of Rs 45,000 or more now. Then you have to undertake the RT-PCR COVID test, undergo institutional quarantines, with costs going up to at least 1 lakh rupees for going from here to there (including tests and other such requirements). Many people can't afford this in post-COVID times.

 TL: Are you hopeful about the plight of these workers in the near future? 

Ans: Despite being the largest migrant-sending country and remittance-receiving country, we (India) haven't done much for the migrants' rights and their welfare.

But I know that the Indian government is working on updating the 1983 Emigration Act and it's also working on a Migration Policy.

So when these are done, definitely, I do hope that some positive changes will happen.