Migration is always painful, because it entails leaving one's home and hearth. In many cases, migration is forced by circumstances. A worker migrates to a land of strangers because he finds the doors of opportunity closed in his home country. But what if the promise of a better future abroad turns sour? Saudi Arabia is one such country which is keeping the hearths in many homes in far-flung countries burning. There are thousands of stories with happy endings, but there are many cases where migrant workers have been duped and are facing untold hardships. The authorities have come down heavily on all those who fail to honor the contracts signed with workers. Regulations have been made stiffer to protect the rights of workers as well as employers. The recruitment process has been streamlined to weed out unscrupulous agents. Yet the cases of exploitation and thus the suffering of workers continue. In December, we wrote about a case of 54 Asian workers who were not paid their salaries for many months by an Abqaiq-based manpower company. Now we have been informed that computer access of this company has been blocked by the Ministry of Labor. In Al-Khobar, 24 Indian workers, who arrived in the Kingdom some two years ago, have not received their salaries for the past 10 months. Their “work visit visa” expired 90 days after their arrival yet they were made to work at various construction sites by their sponsor. A mother in India is seeking the freedom of her daughter who was brought to Riyadh as a housemaid two years ago, and she has not been allowed to go home. She is suffering in isolation. A house driver was declared ‘huroob' (runaway) by his sponsor in Riyadh when he wanted to go back to his home country for good. Distress has led to a desperate cry, which echoes from Riyadh to Dammam to Jeddah: “Please send us home.” A similar cry is heard from the kith and kin of many workers who died here. Their bodies are lying in morgues, because repatriation formalities have not been completed for various reasons. There is no catharsis from these tragedies. There are cases where the bodies have been repatriated, yet financial benefits or compensations have not been finalized. These workers are not affluent people. They are the main breadwinners of their families. Take the case of 29-year-old Taiyab Ansari, who died in Aakfa, Dhahran Al-Janoub in Najran, in a traffic accident last July. His body was repatriated. But his relatives are yet to receive financial compensation announced by the General Organization of Social Insurance (GOSI). His sponsor issued a check of SR50,15 in his name, which is lying in the files at Indian consulate's welfare section. From a distance, cases like these might appear to be a mere speck on a larger canvas. But look deeper, and you will see stories of hardship, of trial and tribulation, of dreams turned into nightmares.
