Dreams of thousands of Asian youths – the Indians in particular – of earning lucrative salaries in the Gulf are often shattered. These people are often duped by their job consultants and then their passports are confiscated by the “employer” once they report in the foreign land.  According to estimates, nearly 1.5 million Indians left India in last two years for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in search of livelihood and quite a few of them must have been the victim of this employment racket.

The illegal recruitment practices, both in India and in other countries, have been going on for years. The recruiting agents are seldom held accountable for fulfillment of contracts in the guest country. The role of touts in fleecing the money from gullible victims has reached such a proportion that Indian government is now carrying out advertisements on all major television channels to caution the aspiring young candidates. But the manipulative system is so well entrenched that touts and recruitment agents seem to find new ways to get at their unsuspecting customers.

Exploitation
In view of this ever growing exploitation and bad publicity that the Gulf States have been getting over the issue, labour ministers from the six-nation GCC and their counterparts from Asia have decided to propose an action plan to protect the welfare of workers.

The Abu Dhabi Declaration, as it is known, has come at a right time in the beginning of a new year as increasing number people from Asia continue to flock to the six Gulf nations – Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, The United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, Qatar and Kuwait – to take advantage of the growing job opportunities thanks to the booming oil economies of the region. 

The local population simply cannot fulfill the region’s manpower needs. The GCC states, with a total population of 35 million are heavily dependent on foreign labourers, mostly from Asian countries. The Abu Dhabi declaration calls for promoting welfare and ensure protection for contractual workers. It seeks to prevent their exploitation at origin and destination. The ministers have recommended drawing up of a concrete proposal in next three months mainly to prevent illegal recruitment practices.

It is not the first time that such a comprehensive discussion on labour insecurity has taken place. The meeting in the UAE capital builds on what is known as a “Colombo Process”, set up in 2003 as the Asian regional consultative process on overseas employment and contractual labour. The process included Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and  Vietnam with the aim to initiate dialogue on overseas labour.

The new Abu-Dhabi declaration will lead to further progress only if both labour-sending and labour-receiving countries work together and come out with important agreements that directly involve welfare and safety of the labourers.

Enforcing the law
The labour-sending countries have enormous responsibility to ensure that they protect their citizens against illegal recruitment practices while the receiving countries need to come out strongly against the misuse of employment system within their borders. It is widely felt that the Gulf countries must review their own permit system of allowing their citizens to hire cheap labour from Asia.

These citizens have been misusing the employment system by selling their quotas to unscrupulous recruitment agents in Asia. Many citizens in the Gulf who do not need a domestic servant end up making money out of the existing sponsorship system through which they are allowed to hire foreign workers.

Thousands of people aspiring for the greener pastures are also pushed into these countries illegally through different routes. Those on visit visas continue to stay back well after their allotted period of stay. They manage to bribe their way to get menial jobs. This problem can be resolved only through strict enforcement of the law in these countries.

It is hoped that by the next Abu Dhabi dialogue, slated to be held in 2010, all the parties involved address these serious concerns and streamline the recruitment process.