The Expendables

ON A VISIT a few years ago to a labour camp in Ajman, United Arab Emirates (UAE), I had a long chat with one of its managers, a middle-aged Indian-origin man, who politely told me I could not go into the living quarters. He took me instead to his office where, over black tea and cream biscuits, we spoke for the next few hours about the life of low-income Indians employed in the Gulf region.

He said that most of the workers there expect what he called “a break”, an opportunity to come into money. However, only a small percentage of the migrants hit paydirt and make enough to live it up, while the rest of them accumulate debt. To service these debts, they end up bound to their workplaces—even though their dream is to make money and go back home.

Stories of rare success and glory offer inspiration nonetheless, although they are often far removed from the reality of their existence in the concrete jungles built on desert sands. Their jobs are usually the lifeline for their families, and all they do is save and send back money home, spending hardly anything on themselves.

“We live not exactly on food, but hope,” he summed it up, with a laugh that had a tinge of irony and sarcasm.

The Indian manager is spot-on about hopes. After all, close to 9 million Indians work in the Gulf countries (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and Qatar), according to official government statistics. The region accounts for more than 66 per cent of Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) out of around 13.4 million in the whole world. The UAE employs more than 3.41 million Indians, Saudi Arabia 2.59 million, Kuwait 1.02 million, Qatar 740,000, Oman 770,000 and Bahrain 320,000. Most of them are blue-collar employees whose top priority is to save as much money as possible and send it back home.

The tragic deaths of 49 people, 41 of them Indians, in a fire accident at one of the accommodations offered by their company in southern Kuwait’s Mangaf on June 12 bring to the fore the precarious nature of the lives of these workers. Despite contributing immensely to their families and local economies, they live in report­edly risky or deplorable living conditions in overcrowded buildings, often with inadequate access to good sanitation and healthcare.

The specific details of what caused these devastating deaths are under investigation and a comprehensive report is yet to be out. It is a bitter reminder of reports from Qatar before the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which found that at least 6,500 migrant workers had died due to inhumane working conditions, while many more had not received compensation or faced wage theft and exploitation.

Once again, the spotlight is clearly on migrant workers’ rights and liveability of the labour camps in the Middle East, the accom­modation they are offered or where they choose to live in these countries on their own.

KG Abraham, managing director of the Kuwait-based NBTC Group where workers who died in the fire were employed, was quoted in the media as saying that the building leased for the work­ers had 24 apartments, each of which had three bedrooms. He also said that only around 160 employees were living there. He offered to compensate the families of those who perished in the accident. Abraham, interestingly, is co-producer of a Malayalam film titled Adujeevitham (Goat Life), which is based on an eponymous novel by Benyamin who created the main protagonist out of the real-life story of an Indian migrant worker trapped into slavery in a Gulf nation. Abraham also owns a five-star hotel and runs several other business establishments in his home state of Kerala.

Earlier, a Reuters report quoted Kuwait’s Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Fahad Yusuf Saud Al-Sabah—who visited the site—as saying that “the greed of real-estate owners is what leads to these matters.” The news agency also quoted a local publica­tion who spoke to an Egyptian national who survived the fire: he said that the fire had started on a lower floor and that those on higher levels couldn’t escape. Many of those who tried to escape fell unconscious in the thick smoke that bellowed upwards and died. Sadly, many of them were about to return home after years of gruelling labour, according to reports.

People familiar with how blue-collar workers from India and elsewhere are housed in Gulf countries have backed studies from global NGO Human Rights Watch and several others. The situation gets far worse in soaring temperatures. “Despite substantial scientific evidence on the devastating health impact of exposure to extreme heat, Gulf states’ protection failures are causing millions of migrant workers to face grave risks, including death,” Human Rights Watch said in a recent report.

Studies by academics, too, have highlighted the plight of Indian workers in the Gulf and the discrimination they face. Saddam Khan of Aligarh Muslim University has concluded in his study titled ‘Human Rights Dimensions in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Countries: A Study of Indian Migrant Workers’ that although there has been some progress over the years, they continue to face systematic abuse and discrimination and that until recently, successive Indian governments have offered only “Band-Aid” responses to alleviate their struggle.

At the core of this discrimination is the Kafala (sponsorships) system, which, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, “gives private citizens and companies … almost total control over migrant workers’ employment and immigration status”.

THIS IS WHAT an International Labour Organization (ILO) report has to say about the system: “The sponsorship system’s economic objective was to provide temporary, rotating labour that could be rapidly brought into the country in an economic boom and expelled during less affluent periods. Un­der the Kafala system, a migrant worker’s immigration status is le­gally bound to an individual employer or sponsor [kafeel] for their contract period. The migrant worker cannot enter the country, transfer employment, or leave the country for any reason without first obtaining explicit written permission from the kafeel.”

This system, without doubt, gives contractors and labour sup­pliers tremendous control over the workers who are forced to be meek in the face of conditions that resemble modern slavery.

Speaking specifically about the recent situation in Kuwait, Suresh KP, a businessman based out of that country, reveals, “Workers from India or elsewhere come here with a purpose: To send money back to their families. If you earn less than 400 Kuwaiti dinars a month, you cannot afford to rent a home on your own, and unless you are given accommodation by the company that has hired you, you end up sharing it with others. That is how most workers in low-income backgrounds manage to spend as low as 15 to 25 dinars or so on rent in order to tighten their belts, and cater to their family expenses.” Suresh, who has lived in the country for 28 years and is honorary joint secretary of the Indian Business and Professional Council, Kuwait, a nonprofit voluntary organisation, avers that unless the salaries of migrant workers are raised drastically, they have no choice but to live in a shared home. “Accidents happen because of electrical short circuits or high hot weather conditions,” adds Suresh.

Some others Open spoke to say that the homes are often in dilapidated buildings in the worst quarters of the city, and that accidents can take place due to several reasons, including the neglect of a single person, for instance, that of the watchman of the building, who is called haaris in Arabic.

Kuwait-based Ajith Kumar, who has also been based out of this Gulf country for decades now and is also associated with Indian organisations there, says that in the case of the accommo­dation offered by employers, sometimes a large number, as high as eight people, share a room inside a building. “They often live in a dormitory system,” he says, adding that even qualified engineers work in low-paid jobs with the hope that they could land a better job afterward.

Elaborating on the conditions under which many of these blue-collared workers live, he says, “Sometimes, 10 or more people share a toilet. While some employers offer decent housing, others don’t. In some cases, workers rent their own space, sharing with others, and companies that hire them have no clue about where they live. Kumar points out that sometimes subcontractors are also involved, which makes it tough to track living conditions.

He added that, following the fire accident, the Kuwaiti police are now evicting migrant workers, especially bachelors, including those from India, over what they see as housing code violations, meaning overcrowding. Kumar says this is only going to add to their woes, especially in this scorching heat. Meanwhile, it is learnt that the Indian embassy in Kuwait has sprung into action, requesting that those evicted be allowed to stay back in their homes.

Others who spoke to Open on condition of anonymity say that many of these migrant workers live in abysmally unclean surroundings, primarily because of their large numbers, and because the housing projects are “bursting at the seams”, as one of them described it. It is a dangerous and dismal existence. Another person who is in the labour recruitment section of a Kuwait company said, “People don’t get used to hardship. They choose to suffer here so that their wives and children and close relatives don’t have to suffer from a shortage of funds back home… Homes leased for workers are places where accidents are waiting to happen. Kitchens are run professionally in most labour camps in the deserts but, in residential areas, danger lurks because of the lack of proper monitoring.”

Mustafa OV, a Dubai-based businessman and managing director at Gargash Insurance Group, has some insights to offer about such accidents. He attributes such mishaps typically to the neglect and efforts by employers of migrant workers to save on costs. “Most employers cut corners to save operational expenses. They cannot do that in the quality of work or deliverables. And so they cut corners in benefits to employees,” he says, suggest­ing that it is a routine practice engaged by many contractors to earn a profit. As a result, says Mustafa, safety standards also get compromised. Employees seldom complain because they need their jobs to send home money. “There are, of course, employers in the Gulf region, especially in Dubai, who take good care of their employees,” says the businessman.

Going forward, to check the safety of camps and residential homes where workers live, fines and other punitive measures will have to be enforced far more strictly, he proposes. “Reliance on subcontractors also makes the situation precarious,” Mustafa adds, dwelling on the living conditions of migrant workers.

The greed of employers is one of the causes of such tragic events, although there are multiple reasons from human error to systemic issues that are responsible for the loss of lives.

Meanwhile, reports on remittances from abroad to India underline why India needs to place greater emphasis on its diaspora. Suresh KP and others are of the view that the Indian embassy in Kuwait acted promptly to handle the crisis. More ef­forts are however in order, especially in terms of preventing such accidents by ensuring that migrant workers’ rights are respected.

According to reports, the US remains the single highest source of remittances to India. As a bloc, though, the Gulf countries contribute much more, and the UAE tops the list.

According to the latest official data available, of the total remittances to India by NRIs, the US accounts for around 23.4%, the United Arab Emirates 18%, the UK 6.8%, Singapore 5.7%, Saudi Arabia 5.1%, Kuwait 2.4%, Oman 1.6%, and Qatar 1.5%.

More importantly, India is the recipient of the largest sum of re­mittances in the world, according to a report by the International Organisation for Migration’s (IOM) World Migration Report 2024.

The report said, “In 2022, India, Mexico, China, the Philippines, and Egypt were (in descending order) the top five remittance recipient countries, although India was well above the rest, with total inward remittances exceeding $111 billion, the first country to reach and even exceed $100 billion.”

It also said, “More than 40 per cent of all international migrants worldwide in 2020 (115 million) were born in Asia, nearly 20 per cent primarily originating from six Asian countries, including India (the largest country of origin), China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Philippines and Afghanistan.”

According to a report on June 18 in Arab Times, a local media group in Kuwait, a government source stated that, following the Kuwaiti ruler’s instructions, the families of the tragic Mangaf building fire victims would receive compensation amounting to $15,000 each. “This financial aid aims to support bereaved families during this difficult time,” the statement reads. It added that the compensation payments will be processed and delivered to the victims’ respective embassies. “The embassies will then ensure the funds are distributed to the families of those affected by the fire. This method expedites the process and ensures the assistance reaches the victims’ families promptly and efficiently,” the report added.

Employers who hire migrant workers have a greater responsibility. Migrant workers cannot be treated as expendable. Saving lives must be their top priority.

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