Unfair labor relations to migrant workers in the construction industry of Maldives / Mohamed Jinaan

Abstract

Maldives always has been one of the key destinations of migrant workers. Due to favourable economic conditions migrant workers, especially from neighbouring countries come to Maldives for better employment opportunities. This has resulted in increasing number of migrant workers employed in the country. With the booming migrant workers, the construction sector of Maldives dominates their workforce.
With big dreams migrant workers travel to Maldives after selling their personal belongings and taking huge loans from family, friends and banks with high interest rates. But upon the arrival to Maldives the whole image changes. Migrant workers become victims of Human trafficking. Employer practice forced labour in harsh condition. But no travel documents in hand, migrant workers get trapped in the hand of the employer and becomes the victims of unfair labour practices. Employers forced these workers to work for long hours with little or no break in unsafe working conditions. Hence these workers are provided with inadequate accommodations to live in. These fundamental rights are ignored by the employers as well as other authorities and Associations and fails to take action against it.
This paper investigates the main ways of unfair practices to migrant workers in the construction industry by using face to face in-depth interviews with the migrant workers and employers in the construction industry as well as interviews with relevant authorities and information collected from different documents and websites.
This study will explore how unfairly migrant workers are treated in the construction industry of Maldives. In addition, the study will explore the legal rights and statutory bodies available for the migrant workers in the construction industry of Maldives. Also, the study will explore the main challenges faced by the migrant workers in voicing about the unfair practices.