What makes GCC nations such a big draw for India's emigrant labour?

Khaled Habib works as a “helper” at the Dubai International Airport, assisting passengers with their picks at one of the numerous chocolate and snack shops at the airport’s expansive international terminal. Habib has been living in Dubai for eight years now, and hasn’t visited his home in Murshidabad, West Bengal, even once. “The kafeel cooks up some excuse or the other to keep me here. Corona is the latest. My family says it’s safe to travel back, but my kafeel insists that he will not sponsor my return if I travel back, citing health safety.”

In Gulf countries, the kafala, or sponsorship system, defines the relationship between foreign workers and their local sponsor or kafeel (usually their employer). It has been used in countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council or the GCC — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—as well as Jordan and Lebanon. Both Bahrain and Qatar claim to have abolished the system, though critics say reforms are poorly enforced and often not implemented.

Habib’s tale is neither new nor out of the ordinary. The deplorable conditions of migrant workers in Gulf countries, have been well documented across media reports over the last few decades. And yet, a steady stream of migrant workers flies to the GCC countries every year.

According to a 2020 Ministry of External Affairs report, 3.4 million Indians reside in the UAE and 2.5 million in Saudi Arabia. Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar together host around another 2.5 million Indians. That takes the total number of Indians residing in GCC countries to more than 8 million. According to the Indian Centre for Migration, more than 300,000 more Indian immigrants have flown to the GCC countries in 2021 and 2022. As opposed to this, the number of Indian immigrants living in the US is nearly 4.5 million.

A large section of these emigrants includes migrant workers employed in building the region's urban infrastructure, like the six new stadiums and railway networks built for the recently concluded FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar. The Qatar World Cup, in fact, was only the most recent occasion to turn the global media’s attention back to the systemic abuse propagated by the kafala structure.

Under the kafala system, the state gives local individuals or companies sponsorship permits to employ foreign labourers. The sponsor covers travel expenses and provides housing. Rather than hiring an individual directly, sponsors sometimes use private recruitment agencies in the countries of origin to find workers and facilitate their entry to the host country.

However, there are times when workers are made to sign contracts they often do not understand. These contracts include conditions different from what they were promised. Workers then find themselves subjected to long work hours and poor working and living conditions. Their passports may get confiscated, and their wages withheld. Such conditions contribute to expanding demand for trafficked migrants. This, in turn, creates even more lucrative opportunities for recruiters, exploiters and middlemen.

Namrata Raju, the India Director at Equidem Research and Consulting, points out that nationality-base discrimination, wage theft, overwork and a work culture of fear are a common experience for immigrant labourers working in countries like Qatar. Equidem, a human rights and labour rights organisation, conducted one of the largest investigations on the working condition of migrant labourers, focusing primarily on the Qatar World Cup.

The Equidem report on discrimination and exploitation of migrant construction workers at Qatar stadium sites found that these workers inevitably fall into a situation of debt bondage. They find themselves compelled to accept onerous terms and conditions. This is particularly common among construction, domestic, and lower-level service workers.

With such a well-documented history of labour abuse, why then, are an increasing number of migrant labourers from India still heading to these GCC countries in search of employment?

Taufeeq Alam (name changed), who recently returned after spending close to a decade in Bahrain, says that during this time his salary bought his family a 2bhk flat in Noida and helped them save for his sister’s marriage. Alam, who is only 35, now works as a cook at a South Delhi eatery which specialises in West Asian cuisine. He is also simultaneously pursuing a Post Graduate Diploma in Hotel Operation, from the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). In Bahrain, Alam worked his way from a maintenance staff to a waiter at a Manama-based restaurant.  

For the likes of Alam and Habib, the main driver of this migration is the hope of a better future. Migrant workers contribute to their home countries by sending back money or remittances to their respective families. India is the world's biggest recipient of these remittances, with inflows expected to cross $100 billion by the end of 2022, according to a report by World Bank and the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development (KNOMAD). Of this, 30 per cent is sent by Indian workers in GCC countries. In comparison, the US counts for 23 per cent of total remittance inflows.

The report noted that the majority of GCC’s Indian migrants are blue-collar workers who returned home during the pandemic. Vaccinations and the resumption of travel helped more migrants to resume work in 2022 than in 2021. GCC’s price support policies kept inflation low in 2022, and higher oil prices increased demand for labour, enabling Indian migrants to increase remittances and counter the impact of India’s record-high inflation on the real incomes of their families.

Many Indians like MA Yousuf Ali, the chairman of the multinational conglomerate LuLu Group International, and Azad Moopen, the director of Aster DM Healthcare, have also scripted success stories realising their Gulf dreams.

Talmiz Ahmad, Visiting Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, believes that there has been a “continuous effort at improving the situation. Most GCC countries now have labour ministries and they have initiated new rules and norms for the better treatment of the workers.”

However, he also points out that there are two sides of the India-GCC migration story. While it is necessary to guarantee strong labour laws and working conditions for migrant workers in GCC countries, it is equally important to ensure that sending people abroad is conducive to their welfare. A robust emigration clearance system can achieve this. Such a system can ensure that the promised work is legitimate and payments for their work will also be secure, Ahmad added.

(With data inputs from Samreen Wani)

* More than 8 million Indians living in GCC countries

* A little below 5 million in the US

* GCC countries like Bahrain and Qatar have claimed to have abolished the Khalifa system, but it still persists

* The need for financial security and prosperity drives Indians to the Gulf

* India's remittances from the Gulf are expected to cross $100 billion by the end of 2022

* Gulf countries contribute 30% of total remittances, the US contributes 23%

* There seems to be a gradual shift from largely low-skilled, informal employment in the GCC countries to a dominant share of high-skilled jobs in high-income nations like the US and the UK

* The US overtook Saudi Arabia in 2021-22 as the top source nation for remittances to India, but the GCC region has a larger cumulative share.