Indian immigrant labour in Saudi Arabia: As Indian embassy turns a blind eye, hundreds of Indian workers languish in jails

2011
Syed Akbar
Hyderabad, April 4: About 100 workers from the State, now lodged in a jail in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, have been allegedly denied food for the last three days.
According to information reaching here, the Saudi jail authorities have not been serving food to Indian prisoners, many of whom are from Andhra Pradesh. Most of the prisoners are poor and went to Saudi
Arabia for employment.
They left their employers, after being cheated both on salary and nature of work, and landed in jail as they were not in possession of their passports. The workers had deposited their passports with their employers. Since they had left employment before the end of the contract, their passports were withheld.
"The treatment in jail is inhuman. The food served is not sufficient. I have received information that the jail authorities have not been providing food since Saturday," said Urugonda Rajendra Prasad, who
returned to his native Sircilla after being released from the Jeddah jail on Thursday. Prasad was one of the three Indian prisoners recently released. The other two being Santosh Kumar Soni from Uttar Pradesh
and Dastagir from Kadapa.
Migrant labour rights activist P Narayana Swamy, who contacted some of the jail inmates on telephone, told this correspondent that about 730 Indians have been languishing in the Saudi jail after the Indian embassy
failed to come to their rescue.
Narayana Swamy released a list of 32 prisoners from Andhra Pradesh along with their passport numbers. "I have collected the names and passport numbers of another 40 prisoners from the State. When I contacted the Indian embassy I got a vague reply. Instead of addressing the problem of prisoners, a letter sent by Rajesh Swami, under secretary (Gulf) refers to some 70 Indians staying under a flyover in Jeddah," he said.
Rajendra Prasad said the jail has 18 barracks and Indians are put up with prisoners of other countries. "I could visit only five of them and could count about 100 Telugu prisoners. We borrowed heavily to pay for visa and tickets, but when we landed in Saudi Arabia we were subjected to humiliation. The pay package was not honoured. In jail a single plate of food is served for five prisoners," Prasad said.

Gulf Immigration racket: Illegal, unregistered job recruitment agents adopt a new strategy to "push" illiterate Indian women to Arab countries

Immigration racket has assumed a new menace. After Kallivalli, it's "pushing". Pushing, in immigration racketers parlance, is greasing the hands of immigration officials to literally push through ineligible and illiterate women and men for jobs abroad. These people, with emigration check required stamp on their passports, have to undergo a lengthy immigration process. But "pushing" makes their journey easy, without any obstacles at the immigration desk.

2009
By Syed Akbar
Hyderabad, Nov 21: Half a dozen women from the city are now stranded on the streets of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia after an illegal recruitment agent duped them of employment in the kingdom.
The illiterate women were "employed" as servants in Arab families with a promise of a "good salary",
accommodation and food. But their "employers" changed thrice in the last four months. The women shuttled between "employers" in Jeddah and Mecca and when they learnt that they had been duped, they settled down under the Sitteen flyover in the Saudi Arabian port city.
Ayesha Sultana, Fatima Bibi and four others are victims of human trafficking of a different kind, popularly known in immigration circles as "pushing". Illegal and unregistered recruiting agents "push" illiterate and semi-skilled women and men to Arab countries without their going through the mandatory immigration formalities. According to sources, at least 12 women are "pushed" through immigration to Arab countries from Mumbai every week.
Travails began for Ayesha Sultana and others the moment they landed in Saudi Arabia, after paying about Rs 1.5 lakh each to an unregistered agent in Mumbai. An agent in Hyderabad, also unregistered, facilitated their travel through his counterpart in Mumbai.
The victims have now approached the Indian mission in Jeddah seeking action against the unregistered agents, who had cheated them. "We are now living under a flyover. None of the employers paid us salaries. We did not get food on time and often we used to starve. The agents have duped us after collecting huge amounts from us," Ayesha Sultana said from Jeddah.
Another victim Fatima said "after arriving in Riyadh I was moved frequently from one household to another. When I contacted the recruitment agent, he promised to bring back to India, but handed me over to another family in Mecca."
When contacted the local agent, Sohail, said he had collected just Rs 1000 from each of the women. Sohail blamed his Mumbai counterpart Khaled Ansari of Khaled Enterprises for the women's trouble in foreign land. "I have no role at all," he said seeking to thrown the entire blame on Khaled.
Admitting that his recruitment company has not been registered, Khaled told this correspondent that it was his first batch of women domestic helps sent to Saudi Arabia. "There's a problem there. We will sort it out soon," he said.
Ayesha, a divorcee and mother of five-year-old daughter suffering with heart valve problem, sought employment in Saudi Arabia so that she could treat her daughter in a corporate hospital back home. Fatima too is a divorcee. The other women are middle aged.

Gulf job racket: Indian women stranded on the streets of Jeddah

By Syed Akbar

Hyderabad, Nov 21: Half a dozen women from the city are now stranded on the streets of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia after an illegal recruitment agent duped them of employment in the kingdom.

The illiterate women were "employed" as servants in Arab families with a promise of a "good salary", accommodation and food. But their "employers" changed thrice in the last four months. The women shuttled between "employers" in Jeddah and Mecca and when they learnt that they had been duped, they settled down under the Sitteen flyover in the Saudi Arabian port city.

Ayesha Sultana, Fatima Bibi and four others are victims of human trafficking of a different kind, popularly known in immigration circles as "pushing". Illegal and unregistered recruiting agents "push" illiterate and semi-skilled women and men to Arab countries without their going through the mandatory immigration formalities. According to sources, at least 12 women are "pushed" through immigration to Arab countries from Mumbai every week.

Travails began for Ayesha Sultana and others the moment they landed in Saudi Arabia, after paying about Rs 1.5 lakh each to an unregistered agent in Mumbai. An agent in Hyderabad, also unregistered, facilitated their travel through his counterpart in Mumbai.

The victims have now approached the Indian mission in Jeddah seeking action against the unregistered agents, who had cheated them. "We are now living under a flyover. None of the employers paid us salaries. We did not get food on time and often we used to starve. The agents have duped us after collecting huge amounts from us," Ayesha Sultana said from Jeddah.

Another victim Fatima said "after arriving in Riyadh I was moved frequently from one household to another. When I contacted the recruitment agent, he promised to bring back to India, but handed me over to another family in Mecca."

When contacted the local agent, Sohail, said he had collected just Rs 1000 from each of the women. Sohail blamed his Mumbai counterpart Khaled Ansari of Khaled Enterprises for the women's trouble in foreign land. "I have no role at all," he said seeking to thrown the entire blame on Khaled.

Admitting that his recruitment company has not been registered, Khaled told this correspondent that it was his first batch of women domestic helps sent to Saudi Arabia. "There's a problem there. We will sort it out soon," he said.

Ayesha, a divorcee and mother of five-year-old daughter suffering with heart valve problem, sought employment in Saudi Arabia so that she could treat her daughter in a corporate hospital back home. Fatima too is a divorcee. The other women are middle aged.

Plight of Indian labour: Life is not a bed of roses for Gulf NRIs

By Syed Akbar
Hyderabad: Life is not rosy for lakhs of Indians employed in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries as only five per cent of the NRIs there earn enough to lead a normal life on return to India.
An on-line and field survey conducted by Pravasi Bandhu Welfare Trust, a Dubai-based non-governmental organisation working for bettering the lives of Indian workers in GCC countries, a whopping 95 per cent of NRIs in the Gulf do not save anything and return empty handed to India even after working for a decade. Only five per cent of the Indian labour force including the white collared bring enough money to live happily back home.
Trust chairman KV Shamsuddin told this correspondent that though only 10 per cent of Indian workers in GCC nations live with families, a majority of them fail to save sufficient money due to low wages and high expenditure on medical treatment. Contrary to the popular belief that Indian workers earn high salaries in the Gulf, a minuscule 15 per cent of NRIs get salaries upward of 4500 Dirhams. As many as 34 per cent of employees do not save at all while only two per cent of NRI families back home save something for future. The salary is as low as 350 Dirhams which works out to just 100 US dollars or Rs 4,500 a month.
"We have conducted a survey among middle and low income expatriate Indians in GCC and found only 5 per cent had some financial resources to have some monthly income back home when they return," Shamshuddin said.
The regular remittance to families in India is spent on domestic needs, acquiring a house or on marriage of sisters/daughters. And when they return home, there's hardly anything left. So they once again leave India for the Gulf for re-employment, the survey pointed out.
The most important observation of the survey is that the middle income NRIs in the Gulf sacrifice even basic necessities leading a life of deprivation for their families back home. They work hard in extreme climates, saving and remitting maximum possible funds to give good life to their families.
But only two percent of the families save from the remittance. Even though 98 per cent had agreed that the lifestyle of their families had improved, only 5 per cent felt they could lead a comfortable life if they go back for permanent settlement in India.