Overview of Migrants' Rights Violations in the Middle East over the Last Month

by Fatima (Saudi Arabia)

Over the month of January, we at Migrant-Rights.org have covered cases of abuse against migrant workers in Lebanon, Jordan, Libya, Qatar, the UAE, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait. Following our documentation of several cases of suicide and attempted suicide by domestic workers in Kuwait, the Kuwait Times has published an expose on the subject. We continued to approach regional embassies this month and publish the stories of the migrant workers in distress who contacted us.

Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2010 was released this month, which strongly condemns the Gulf states for failing to protect the rights of Migrant Workers. The HRW report raises the issues of passport confiscation, abuses of domestic workers and bans on trade unions as key issues in the region. Bahrain and Kuwait have taken steps towards removing the kafala system, which ties the right of a migrant to remain in the country to the permission of his sponsor. However, a disturbing finding is that migrant domestic workers are excluded from the new legislation. This is particularly concerning to Migrant-Rights.org given the spate of suicides and attempted suicides by distressed maids working in the region in recent months (see here and here).

This month, the worrisome trend of suicides by domestic workers in Lebanon continues, with four documented cases of suicide in four weeks (see first, second, and third and fourth). In the second week of January, three migrant workers ended their life in Bahrain.

Highlights

The following section will include stories that we feel are especially important or haven’t received enough public attention:

Qatar a ‘Death Trap’ for Nepali Migrants
Around 217 Nepali migrant workers lost their lives in Qatar in 2009, according to Nepali Ambassador Surya Nath Mishra. This is a rise from the 175 documented cases of death of Nepali nationals in Qatar in 2008. The rapidly-developing Gulf state has long been a favored destination for Nepali migrant workers, many of whom are employed on construction sites.

Bangladeshi Workers Go Hungry in Libya
A group of 46 Bangladeshi workers in Libya who have been living without work, salaries and facilities for months. The workers have been living out in “a shabby abandoned camp with no sanitation and facilities”, according to one of the workers. On days when they can’t find work, they go hungry and sometimes boil leaves for food.

Raped Filipino Worker Faces Lashing after Miscarriage in Saudi Prison
A Filipino woman who worked as a janitor in Saudi Arabia was raped in August of last year by a Bangladeshi co-worker and became pregnant as a result. Her pregnancy was discovered in September during a medical checkup and she was thrown to jail because the police did not accept her version that she was raped, and instead ruled that she had an “illicit affair”. Last month the woman suffered a miscarriage in prison and she is now facing lashings before being deported back to the Philippines.

This was the Migrant-Rights.org newsletter for the month of January. If you wish to subscribe, you can enter your e-mail address into the form at the bottom of the Migrant-Rights.org homepage.