According to several organizations like Human Rights Watch, the COVID-19 pandemic has left many migrants vulnerable to abuse due to the rough treatment foreign workers experience in the country. They face lasting violations to basic labor rights and lack the ability to protest peacefully.

Similar to virtually any other country, migrant workers in the Maldives are vulnerable to a number of situations, including but not limited to fraudulent recruitment processes, passport confiscation, wage theft, hazardous living conditions, and extreme work demands. All of these risks are in direct violation of national and international standards.

With the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis is becoming even more peril. On top of the situations previously mentioned, workers are now facing job loss, salary cuts, forced work without pay, and unpaid leave.

Human Rights Watch interviewed several workers by phone last month in order to hear first-hand just how harsh their treatment really is. All seven workers and the three lawyers representing them recounted instances of trafficking, forced work, sub-minimum wages, coerced overtime, and overcrowded housing.

According to a report published by the United Nations in 2020, the Maldives actually has the highest rate of migrant workers in South Asia, with numbers somewhere between 145,000 and 230,000 that make up approximately a third of the resident population. The majority come from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan.

Migrants are very susceptible to a corrupt practice referred to as “quota trading”, where companies who have the authorization to bring in more workers than necessary “trade” them for others, essentially trafficking them. Here, laborers can no longer identify their employers and therefore cannot hold them accountable for their actions.

Potential migrant workers headed to the Maldives go through legitimate and illegitimate labor agents in order to get a job. Many of these agents will extort money, forge travel documents, and lie about real work arrangements. Workers pay anywhere between 2,000 and 4,000 USD through loans or mortgages only to end up in lower job positions with decreased salaries.

“I want to go back but I can’t. I have to somehow make money to pay back my loan. Every time I am able to speak with my father, he cries. He wants me to return, but that isn’t an option.”

Mohamed Shareef, a 26-year-old Bangladeshi national who arrived in the Maldives in 2019.

Even before the Coronavirus pandemic, wage abuse was common practice throughout the Maldives. Sources told Human Rights Watch that the 200 migrants working on Bodufinolhu Island had not received a single paycheck since December 2019; their supervisors assured them that the situation would be handled, threatening them with deportation without pay if anyone asked any more questions regarding their salaries.

There is also an alarming lack of safety precautions which often lead to workplace injuries and deaths. In a report published by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), it is stated that work mishaps are the leading cause of death for migrants in the Maldives.

Employers in the country are legally obligated to provide migrant workers with healthcare coverage, however this is frequently overlooked and never extends to outpatient care, with many workers never even being informed that they have insurance.

Since February 2020, many jobs in the informal sector have been eradicated, leaving hundreds of migrants out of a job and with unpaid leave. Abuse to their wages and overall economic vulnerability has heightened during the pandemic.

Thousands of migrants working in construction and tourism began protesting their work conditions and withheld wages back in May, only to receive threats as a response from authorities and silence as a response from the government. Officials have yet to even acknowledge the workplace abuses.

“The COVID-19 crisis has compounded perennial abuses and toppled whatever precarious existence migrant workers in the Maldives may have achieved. The government’s failure to effectively regulate recruitment and employment practices puts already vulnerable migrants into abusive situations, then traps them there.”

Shayna Bauchner, Asia researcher for HRW

---

Sources: