Asians in Dubai race against clock to avoid prison
DUBAI: Hundreds of thousands of Asians including Sri Lankans, often
working in pitiless heat and now facing the threat of prison, are racing
against time to “get legal” — find work permits or leave the United Arab
Emirates within a three-month government deadline.
The labour ministry has officially put the number of clandestine
immigrants at 350,000, of whom nearly 250,000 have left their employers,
saying they had been mistreated or exploited or had their contracts
broken.
The others are either “visitors” who don’t want to leave, or
“infiltrators” who have slipped in from neighbouring countries.
They have one desire in common — not to leave the country, and prefer
to work illegally, offering their services to whoever will pay the best
in an oil-rich country where they are viewed as cheap labour.
Most too are up to their necks in debt, to the agency who recruited
them and for their travel costs to the UAE.
Raju is typical. He told AFP he would prefer to commit suicide rather
than return to his home, the Indian state of Rajasthan, where he owes
the agency money and can’t even move back into his house which he rented
out to try to make ends meet.
While there are no exact figures, suicides are not uncommon among
Asian immigrants when their jobs disappear or collapse in dispute, and
they face the shame of returning home empty-handed.
For the men, hanging themselves from the ventilator in their
collective work cabin or jumping from one of the high-rise buildings,
appears the most common way out, while women go for a strong dose of
detergent.
Raju and thousands of other immigrants have until September 2 to
“regularise their situation in conformity with the law” — in other
words, find a job and a sponsor enabling them to obtain the precious
residence permit, or leave the country legally.
After that, if they are caught still here and operating illegally
they face up to 10 years in prison, followed by deportation.
Those employing them risk a month in jail and a fine of some 13,600
dollars, while someone hiding an “illegal” faces two months behind bars
and a fine twice as heavy.
In 2003, around 100,000 illegal workers left the UAE under a
six-month amnesty. Nonetheless, the authorities later announced that
40,000 illegal workers were arrested after that amnesty deadline
expired.
Around 80 percent of the 4.1 million inhabitants of the UAE are
expatriates, mainly from Asian countries, attracted to the UAE to work
mainly as low-paid labourers and domestic workers.
The biggest group, estimated at 1.2 million, comes from India.
To try to move away from the reliance on foreign labour, the UAE has
for several years undertaken a process of “Emiratisation,” with
companies being told to employ a set quota of Emirati nationals.
The process has, however, been slow and problematic.
One man seeking advice this month at one of the 12 help centres set
up by the Indian embassy in six of the seven emirates forming the UAE,
said he had worked for the government in Dubai for 35 years. He then
lost his job because of the decree to take on more local people.
Since then, said Mohammed, he has been in the country illegally for
10 months.
“The 35 years I spent in Dubai have not benefited me at all and I now
have to reserve a one-way ticket back to India,” he said.
The latest amnesty is described as a “golden opportunity” for
illegals to return home or try to get a work permit with the help of
their national embassies.
“Around 300 Indians in an illegal situation turn up each day to the
‘Indian High School’ where volunteers from various Indian states are
working to help their compatriots, who are mainly illiterate, to
complete forms to pass to the Immigration Department,” Minafi Ghandi, a
volunteer, told AFP.
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