The Hindu: Hyderabad: Sunday,
March 23, 2014.
Lack of
awareness about migration rules the main reason for workers’ woes. The speakers
focussed on West Asia that currently hosts a large number of migrant workers,
with an estimated 12.8 million people struggling to make a living in the Gulf
alone.
Young sisters
Durga Bhavani (13) and Ragi (10) are in tears, for they have not seen their
mother P. Lakshmi (27) for about six years now because she is in a Muscat jail,
trapped in a murder case.
She was
allegedly framed in a murder case because she was witness to her landlady’s
illicit relationship and also to the murder of the landlady’s toddler by the
man.
In a similar
plight is Masireddy, the father of Sreekanth Reddy, now languishing in a prison
in Saudi Arabia for five years.
Likewise, T.
Ramu (45), who holds a work permit valid for two years, is being allegedly
beaten up and tortured by his employer in the Gulf. His wife, Nagamani, is
worried because he has been incommunicado for the past few days. These are just
some tales of woes, suffered by migrants from Andhra Pradesh who went to the
Gulf in the hope of earning some money. They narrated their stories to the
media at a workshop organised by the Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA) and Domestic
Workers Movement, AP (DWM) to sensitise representatives of the Fourth Estate
here on Saturday.
Sister Lissy
Joseph, DWM-AP State coordinator, Rafeeq, MFA’s India coordinator T.
Balagangadhara Rao, Right to Information Act activist and others underscored
the need for a massive awareness campaign to be taken up in order to educate
people seeking employment abroad. Mr. Refeeq regretted that the number of
migrant workers missing thus far was 900 and the number kept growing.
The speakers
focussed on West Asia that currently hosts a large number of migrant workers,
with an estimated 12.8 million people struggling to make a living in the Gulf
alone. They said the awareness and education campaign apart, what was also
required, was to motivate activists and the media, to leverage the benefits of
the RTI that could be used to get information from any Indian embassy abroad,
for information about missing persons.
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