Say No to Human Trafficking!


Written by Irsa Khan • Region • August 2010

Two news items have made headlines in the Maldives recently. In May the country secured a seat in the UN Human Rights Council. Claimed to have been achieved through the highest number of votes in the Council's history, it strengthened Maldives' position and enabled it to lend its support for protecting human rights worldwide.

Quite interestingly, the U.S. State Department has placed the Maldives on its watch-list for human trafficking, following the country's failure to "investigate or prosecute trafficking-related offenses or take concrete actions to protect trafficking victims and prevent trafficking in the Maldives."

The State Department's 2010 Human Trafficking report, which came less than a month after the Maldives was given a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, points to the Maldivian government's inaction, particularly regarding forced labor and exploitation of Bangladeshi nationals.

The report fears that half of the 35,000 Bangladeshis in the Maldives went there illegally and that most of these workers are probably victims of human trafficking. These workers on average pay between U.S. $1,000 to U.S. $4,000 in recruitment fees which potentially makes them vulnerable to forced labor.

The report also classified three types of ‘illegal workers' in Maldives: "families that subject domestic servants to forced labor; employment agents who bring low-skilled migrant workers to the Maldives under false terms of employment and upon payment of high fees; and employers who subject the migrants to conditions of forced labor upon arrival."

This issue of migrant workers and their supposed exploitation in Maldives has been creating quite a furor internationally. Equally disturbing are reports about government's ineptness in dealing with them where the present government in the country blames the previous Gayoom government for profiting from the exploitation.

But how can the migrant workers, who flock in huge number to Maldives in search of good labor end up being labeled as human traffic victims? Almost all Human Rights Commission reports have pointed towards forced labor, very much prevalent in Maldives, which makes even legal workers vulnerable to the working climate in the country.

Migrant laborers pay an exorbitant amount to agents to get into what they think is the lucrative Maldives labor force, only to be hoodwinked into lesser jobs, lesser pay and appalling working conditions. Moreover the dispossessed laborers find themselves in a place that couldn't have been more different to their dreams. Without proper documents they are unable to report to the police and susceptible to exploitation and extortion The immigration department estimates that as much as 30,000 "illegal" migrant workers may be in the country. To add to that, the government's "general policy" for dealing with trafficking victims is deportation. It does not provide foreign victims with legal alternatives to their removal to countries where they might face hardship or retribution which in turn further deteriorates the situation.

Although Mohammad Nasheed's government is trying to sort the problem, motivated by its bid to become a member of the International Labour Organisatoin, it has, so far, failed to bring any of the alleged agents or officials to justice. Instead, the government appears to be concentrating on rounding up illegal immigrants and trying to deport them.

However, human trafficking is a serious international crime and collusion or complicity can seriously jeopardize the Maldives government's bid to join the ILO, which has a constitutional mandate to protect migrant workers.