HYDERABAD: The 10 lakh strong Telangana diaspora working in Gulf countries were given promises a plenty, but even today they ask, where is the much required streamlining of the ‘safe migration passage’ in the State.
Many of these 10 lakh workers continue to be duped and sent on the easily available visiting visas and pilgrim visas to seek better employment opportunities. These visas give permits to stay in the Gulf countries for about 100-150 days. However, when they reach there they enter into employment contracts of minimum two years. As a result, their visas expire and they turn illegal residents, unable to move out of the country.
December 18, every year, is observed as International Migrants Day to highlight the human rights of migrants, and Telanganites are one of the worst abused in the Gulf countries due to multiple reasons.
Another critical issue plaguing is that of false jobs and salaries. “Over these years there has been no intervention to curb the mafia of duplicate and fake travel agents operating in the State. These people approach innocent job seekers on the pretext of taking them as plumbers, electricians, with good salary packages but an increasing number of them are reduced to being sanitation staff which is far less paying and not up to their skill levels,” noted Amjed Ullah Khan, of MBT and an NRI activist.
A larger number of women from the State are also getting caught in a vicious cycle of what could be seen as human trafficking. “India had banned the Khadama (maid) visa. But even to this date women are taken there to work as housemaids and made to do all sort of labour and face atrocities. If they run away from their homes they can't even make it to the airport. They are slapped with cases as a punishment and treated with unimaginable exploitation,” added Khan.
Activists say efforts must be streamlined to ensure citizens of Telangana don’t go to Gulf countries for bogus job opportunities. Muralidhar Reddy G, a welfare worker based in Kuwait says that the Telangana government could strengthen the issuance of Police Clearance Certificate (PCC) by checking the nature of the company the employee plans to join. “The government must also release a list of companies which have had a good past track record with immigrants and release it.”
He adds that as part of creating this safe passage, the government must also give basic training to the workers so that they don’t end up struggling there.
“We have proficiency exams like IELTS and GRE. Something of similar sort must be put in place that checks the basic proficiency of a migrant labour,” adds Reddy. The Ministry of External Affairs has put a list of bogus travel agents. However, even if police catches any fake travel agent who is duping people of money, Section 420 of IPC is applied, amounting to cheating which is bailable. Thus from State government’s end, a focused intervention is required to fill these loopholes,” says Amjed Ullah Khan.