Deported Workers to Get Rights
From today’s Kuwait Times:
Deported workers to get rights
Published Date: August 02, 2008
KUWAIT: Acting Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak and the Minister of Interior Sheikh Jaber Al-Khalid affirmed that Kuwait will never wrong anybody.
They said Kuwait strongly endorses human rights and will ensure that all the deported laborers will get their rights. The indemnity of workers as well as their other dues will be sent to them through the Bangladeshi Embassy in Kuwait.
Al-Mubarak also affirmed that there was no connection between the issue of human trafficking and the strikes staged by Bangladeshi workers. He said the workers committed violations by resorting to acts of sabotage and vandalism and Kuwait has the right to apply laws to deter such acts of violence.
Al-Khalid said the Ministry of Interior initially did not resort to force in dispersing the workers but was left with no option after they turned violent, reported Al-Rai. He said the rioters who resorted to acts of sabotage and vandalism had to be stopped to maintain Kuwait’s national security.
I am guessing this means that the workers were deported without receiving their back salaries. I have a sinking feeling that there probably isn’t a list of them, and what they are owed, and a way to get these salaries to them – I would guess that many of them don’t even have an address.
From the July 31st Kuwait Times:
Published Date: July 31, 2008
By A Saleh, Staff writer
KUWAIT: The Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor has continued summoning cleaning company heads to speedily resolve discussions on cleaning workers complaints after the strikes were suspended. A ministry official said that workers from 20 companies were involved in the strike action, with over 150 workplaces being affected by the strikes, including hospitals, health centers and other state facilities, as well as Cooperative Societies and private sector companies.
The official explained that the social affairs ministry is currently negotiating wage rises for the workers with the companies involved, as well as insisting on back payment of their unpaid salaries and improvements to their miserable living conditions, in order to avoid future recurrences of the recent protests.
The ministry is completely serious about taking strict steps against the companies that fail to comply with new decisions, the official emphasized. He added that the ministry is insisting on receiving official undertakings from the cleaning companies’ management to pay the backdated salaries in full; if these are not paid, the ministry will deduct KD 250 per worker from the company’s bank account.
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it’s sad that a country that claims to be civilised can let things like this go rife ……
Scary, KTDP.
It is so sad to see this over and over again. Maybe for those that got deported, life will turn out better for them now. It takes a certain kind of person, I believe, to leave your homeland and everything you know to try to do something more. Maybe, because of that internal gusto, and being a little wiser to the rest of the world, those workers will find opportunity in Bangladesh that they didn’t see before. And just maybe, with the spirit of their loved ones around them, they will accomplish great things and make their home a better place than it was before. Hope and Love are great gifts of God, and I pray, for their sakes, they find hope in the family’s love they missed.
I imagine they are going back to unimaginable poverty. . . so unimaginable, that 40KD is a salary worth leaving home for. I imagine they still have debts to pay off related to signing their contract. This whole thing is awful.