Migrant Workers

Published 28 January 2006, Arab Newspaper, Letters to the Editor.

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The report “Low-Paid Migrant Workers Narrate Their Plight” (Jan. 25) by Abdul Hannan Faisal Tago about the working conditions of South and Southeast Asian workers in the Kingdom did not tell us anything new. I had heard them all before, first hand, from my Nepali and Bangladeshi friends. In the case of most migrant workers, the decision to accept a job in the Gulf is not a choice made from many available options. The need to provide our families with the minimum necessities of life and the hope of a better future for them forces us to make a decision that we know is full of risks and uncertainties.
The governments of manpower-exporting countries in South and Southeast Asia should enact and enforce laws to regulate recruitment agencies in order to avoid exploitation. They must also impose minimum-wage conditions for their skilled work force. If a Filipino skilled worker receives more than his South/Southeast Asian counterparts, it is not racial bias; he is receiving the minimum wage agreed in the bilateral talks by the Philippines and the host government.