Bahrain minister pushes for new law.

Byline: Bahrain's labour minister is pushing for a law to limit the time an expatriate worker can stay in the country.

Manama: Majid Al Allawi, Bahrain's Labour Minister, is well-known for not mincing his words.

At times, the former opposition figure who joined the government in 2002 often puts his views and ideas across to the media and to whoever else who listens without the euphemism favoured by other officials and resented by their audiences.

So it was no surprise when the man in charge of the labour portfolio in Bahrain said there was a "good chance that the Gulf Cooperation Council will this time endorse a proposal to impose a five-year residence cap on expatriates working in the Gulf."

"The situation in the Gulf is unique in the world. Here you have foreigners who outnumber locals and easily threaten their national identity and culture. This should not be allowed to continue and we are afraid the situation will be seriously compromised if expatriates are given political rights," he said.

Three years ago, Al Allawi drafted his plan to ensure that the demography in the Gulf is saved from the onslaught of imported labour and foreign cultures. He knew that what he sought to accomplish was not easy, with the business community as a formidable opponent.

"I am shocked to realise that a child in a Gulf country forgets about Arabic as soon as he leaves his home. He is driven to school in a bus or car driven by someone who will speak to him in English. At the private school, the teachers and friends speak to him in English or French," Viktor, a Swiss journalist said, at a recent symposium in Dubai.

Such remarks augment the determination of Al Allawi and his Gulf counterparts to push again for the adoption of a law that will limit the presence of foreigners in their countries.

Good chance

"This year, we have a good chance of moving forward with the proposal. In the past we might have had only 40 per cent chance. But this time, I can say that we have at least a 70 per chance of seeing a new law," Al Allawi said.

The proposal calls to limit the stay of an expatriate worker to five years.

The proposal, however, does not include skilled expatriates, such as teachers, lawyers, doctors and journalists, according to the minister.

Growing concerns about new economic definitions of engagement by other countries with the GCC have now prompted Al Allawi and the other Gulf ministers to move quickly and meet to decide on the list of skilled occupations that expatriates can hold for more than five years.

"We are not against foreigners, and we do appreciate their contributions. However, we also do need to preserve our identity and culture," Al Allawi said, minutes before he took part in an off-media panel debate, within the Manama Dialogue, a multinational symposium held under the auspices of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

"One panellist called to consider expatriate workers as migrant workers and not as guest workers who would stay only a short period of time. The panellist called to grant them political rights and not to impose any cap on their stay. Agreeing to such requests simply means a catastrophe for the countries in the region, the loss of their identity and social structure and political perdition," Al Allawi said following the debate on demographics, labour and security.

"I refuse to call them migrant workers. They are here for only a specific period of time. People need to appreciate that the expatriate force is overwhelming. It is not like in Britain for instance where it is less than 10 per cent and is therefore easy to integrate.

"We do not want to find ourselves later in a difficult situation where we will be pressured to start considering granting nationality to people who have migrated and settled in the Gulf. We have our national interests and we should be able to preserve them," he said.

In his speech at the Manama Dialogue on December 13, Dr Sanjaya Baru, former official spokesman and media advisor to India's Prime Minister, said that India's relations with the Arab world had now shifted "away from politics to economics."

"India has launched a new look west policy in the neighbourhood by strengthening her relationships with the Gulf states. The historic visit to India of the King of Saudi Arabia [King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz] and the initiative to seek closer economic relations with member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council has shifted the emphasis away from politics to economics in India's relations with the Arab world," Baru said. | "For reasons of energy security, and given the large dollar remittances sent home by the Indian community in this region, as well as the employment potential of the region, relations with the Gulf region have great relevance for India's economic security," he said.

Al Allawi is aware that the proposal to send home workers after a maximum stay of five years will also be resisted locally, mainly by the powerful business community. A similar residence cap imposition idea was sourly defeated last year, even though the GCC labour ministers diligently promoted it in the Gulf media.

Defend

Business people say that they want to deal with foreigners because they are good at their work and do not cost much. They often argue that in all cases unskilled labourers stay only until the completion of a construction project, and that their numbers swell or dwindle according to the work required. The business community, mainly contractors, but also shop owners, do not hesitate to defend the pay they give or the long hours they ask the labourers to put in. "Many of the workers are able to save enough money to pull their families out of poverty, build homes, fund the education of their children and pay to look after their extended families. Look at the millions of dollars workers send home in remittances," said Salem Mohammad, a tailoring shop manager who employs five Indians.

But it is rarely an oasis of bliss for the thousands of expatriates. The ominous array of hardships including long hours under the scorching sun, financial stress, limited access to assistance, delays in getting salaries, underpayment of wages, being forced to pay for extra documents, additional chores, food deprivation, abusive language from some employers and the severe psychological effects of isolation from the family, is simply not mentioned by those who persistently put pressure on expatriate workers.

And those who ostensibly ignore the offences include people in the workers' countries of origin. There, they are often viewed by officials as "modern-day heroes" for the foreign exchange they earn and remit to their countries.

They are also seen as sources of lucrative gains by corrupt people who promise to offer them all the required help and facilitate their entry into the Gulf and lead them to believe that they will start making a lot of money the minute they land in the host country. So they start paying exorbitant fees to get a visa and ticket to the merciless profit-minded labour recruitment mafioso who blatantly take advantage of the fact that they are poorly monitored and rarely questioned.

False promises

But why do people fall easy prey to such vultures?

"When you have heavy financial burdens and cannot give your family the life you feel they deserve, you are ready to sacrifice for a couple of years to put smiles on the faces of your children and parents. You tend to think that you will make it if you are given the slightest chance, and when they make your eyes dance with fantastic promises, you feel that you should not miss the opportunity," said Shetty, a cleaner for a newspaper in Manama.

"These people are usually under pressure from their families and they are encouraged to borrow money in order to pay off those who helped them move to the Gulf. Then, the reality here hits them, and many of them end up in bigger trouble than when they left their families," he said.

Yet, now the global financial crisis, the weakness of the dollar, to which most of the Gulf currencies are pegged, and the improved economic situation in India seem to have changed the rules of the game.

Around one kilometre away from the impressive hotel where Al Allawi was refuting calls to freeze the proposal to impose a cap on foreign workers, a new drama was unfolding at the marbled Gold Souq, one of the most visible areas where a new migration trend was inexorably prevailing.

Mohammad Rafik heaved a sigh of relief after he told his friends in the shop that he would be leaving them to go back home. He had long dreaded their opposition to the move and as a friend and colleague of two decades, he hated to disappoint them.

But, to his astonishment, Sushant and Mohammad told him that they understood his decision and wished him good luck.

Rafik is one of the hundreds of Indians who are now making the reverse trip from the rich Gulf countries back to India. Their number is inexorably increasing.

"I can assure you that if the present conditions continue for a bit longer, about half of the Indians now working in the Gulf will want to go home where at least they will be with their families as they face hardship," said Sushant, a goldsmith in Manama's famous Gold Souq.

"Most of us are feeling the pinch because of the depreciation of the dollar and the greater challenges to securing a decent living with the spiralling commodity prices and the high rents. There is no real difference today between a goldsmith in Mumbai, where for instance my brother works, and here, so it is better to go home where at least there is your family and close friends to welcome you back," he said.

A weaker dollar for all but one of the Gulf Cooperation Council currencies pegged to the US currency meant rising import costs that hit hard the region's residents and its large expatriate communities.

It also meant a high cost of living that few of the five million expatriates, mainly from India, can afford.

Currency experts say that Indians have lost at least 12 per cent of their earnings because of the exchange rate variations while another 10 per cent is lost because of the high cost of living.

"The economic boom in India has changed the scenario. Many Indians have thought about returning home where they can avail of the new fantastic opportunities and generous packages generated by the strong state of economy in India. A stronger rupee compared with weaker local currencies and employment opportunities means high salaries for people back home," Balakrishna Shetty, India's ambassador to Bahrain, has said.

Debt

For Lateef Yousuf, a helper in a service ministry, the future is not bright.

"Despair is driving many people to commit suicide. We do not condone it of course, but there are people whose personal and family tragedies are extremely shocking. Most are driven to despair because they see no way out of the debt in which they are inexorably sinking. They borrow money and come to the Gulf, lured by the possibility of becoming rich quickly and easily. But reality bites. They get less than what they were promised. Much less. And they are often made to pay for extra expenses that are not included in their contract and of which they are not even aware. Often, they are not paid on time," he said.

"All these violations of their rights and dignity, coupled with difficult living conditions, drive them to end their lives in the belief that their suffering will end and that they will not have to face the shame of not being able to support their families," he said.

"Whether it is by hanging themselves, drinking poison or jumping off high buildings or pedestrian bridges, their suicide in a foreign land is a real tragedy," he said. "The media and the people the next day read or hear about the suicide and it is just another number to them. They do not know or even care to know why that man killed himself. They do not wish to understand what pushed him to end his life. They are not interested in knowing anything about the hovel that the man shared with a dozen other Indian workers and about his destitute family whose deprivation is now compounded by the loss of the breadwinner who left them maybe years ago attracted by a fictitious gold mine in the Gulf."

The situation in the Gulf is unique in the world. Here you have foreigners who outnumber locals and easily threaten their national identity and culture. This should not be allowed to continue..."

Workers' rights: Monitoring agents vital

Recommendations to the governments of workers' countries of origin

Strengthen the regulation and monitoring of recruitment agents.

Set forth clearly defined standards for fees and recruitment practices to reduce overcharging and deception by local brokers and sub-agents; and ensure that sub-agents who violate the regulations face meaningful penalties.

Establish mechanisms for regular and independent monitoring of labour agencies and retained sub-agents. Conduct unannounced inspections of recruitment agencies.

Establish a monitoring system by which domestic workers report to the government the costs they paid to recruitment agents prior to migrating.

Rigorously collect and investigate complaints about nationals working at labour agencies in the countries of employment. Create procedures that allow domestic workers to register this information at foreign missions in the countries of employment and upon return.

- Human Rights Watch - July 7, 2008

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