Human Rights Watch reports
I spent part of yesterday evening reading Bad Dreams: Exploitation and Abuse of Migrant Workers in Saudi Arabia, a publication of Human Rights Watch. So far I've only read the section on women workers, which was extremely depressing. Also, every single word of it could have been written about Qatar.
Another interesting issue I've heard discussed recently is the responsibility of the workers' home countries to ensure their rights. Clearly, the governments of Nepal, India and Sri Lanka (for example) must know that their citizens are frequently exploited when they come here. Some countries have responded; for example, after some high-profile abuse cases a few years ago, Indonesia banned its female citizens from taking housemaid jobs in the Gulf. However, most countries fail address the problems, possibly because they feel so dependent on the income their expat citizens make. A HRW publication on Sri Lankan workers discusses this in detail:
Labor migration is extremely lucrative for Sri Lanka. In 2006, Sri Lanka’s mobile labor force brought in US$2.33 billion in remittances-more than 9 percent of the gross domestic product and US$526 million more than the country received in foreign aid and foreign direct investment combined. Remittances are now a greater source of revenue than tea exports, Sri Lanka's second most important commodity export (after apparel). Labor migration relieves unemployment in Sri Lanka and serves as a crucial source of foreign exchange for the island.
Because remittances are critical to the Sri Lankan government's strategy for poverty reduction and lowering its trade deficit, the government actively pursues a policy of foreign employment promotion. Despite recent reforms, described below, these policies often lack a human element, treating migrant women as an export commodity marketed to wealthy, oil-producing countries where demand is high, yet falling short on human rights protections. Migrants' rights groups in Sri Lanka have referred to the Sri Lankan government's approach to its migrant workers as the "commodity supply approach," characterized by the formula "select, train, pack, insure, and export," with the imperative to protect workers noticeably absent.
The ironic thing is that the governments of these countries have a lot more power than they exercise, since the Gulf economies are so entirely dependent on their laborers.
Edit: Relatedly, India and Qatar just modified their bilateral labor agreement to provide more protections for workers. Yay!
Another interesting issue I've heard discussed recently is the responsibility of the workers' home countries to ensure their rights. Clearly, the governments of Nepal, India and Sri Lanka (for example) must know that their citizens are frequently exploited when they come here. Some countries have responded; for example, after some high-profile abuse cases a few years ago, Indonesia banned its female citizens from taking housemaid jobs in the Gulf. However, most countries fail address the problems, possibly because they feel so dependent on the income their expat citizens make. A HRW publication on Sri Lankan workers discusses this in detail:
Labor migration is extremely lucrative for Sri Lanka. In 2006, Sri Lanka’s mobile labor force brought in US$2.33 billion in remittances-more than 9 percent of the gross domestic product and US$526 million more than the country received in foreign aid and foreign direct investment combined. Remittances are now a greater source of revenue than tea exports, Sri Lanka's second most important commodity export (after apparel). Labor migration relieves unemployment in Sri Lanka and serves as a crucial source of foreign exchange for the island.
Because remittances are critical to the Sri Lankan government's strategy for poverty reduction and lowering its trade deficit, the government actively pursues a policy of foreign employment promotion. Despite recent reforms, described below, these policies often lack a human element, treating migrant women as an export commodity marketed to wealthy, oil-producing countries where demand is high, yet falling short on human rights protections. Migrants' rights groups in Sri Lanka have referred to the Sri Lankan government's approach to its migrant workers as the "commodity supply approach," characterized by the formula "select, train, pack, insure, and export," with the imperative to protect workers noticeably absent.
The ironic thing is that the governments of these countries have a lot more power than they exercise, since the Gulf economies are so entirely dependent on their laborers.
Edit: Relatedly, India and Qatar just modified their bilateral labor agreement to provide more protections for workers. Yay!