The economies of the six oil-rich Gulf states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are highly dependent on low-paid migrant workers from Asian states, such as Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines. These workers sustain a wide range of sectors, from domestic service to hospitality and construction.
However, these same migrant workers are still sorely lacking when it comes to their basic right of having an exploitation-free, conducive work environment. Thousands of them have tales of abusive experiences and too many workplace deaths are not probed properly.
A recently published report on migrant deaths in the Gulf states found that as many as 10,000 migrant workers from South and Southeast Asia die in the Gulf every year, and over half of these deaths remain unexplained.
The report, “The Deaths of Migrants in the Gulf,” said although getting such death data remains a challenge, it was found from Dhaka airport's official statistics that over 11,000 Bangladeshi migrants died while working in the Gulf states between 2016 and September last year.
The report, prepared by Vital Signs Partnership, states that 51.35% (5,743) of all Bangladeshi migrant deaths occurred in Saudi Arabia, 13.31% (1,486) in Oman, 13% (1,452) in the United Arab Emirates, 11.04% (1,233) in Kuwait, 7.02% (784) in Qatar, and 4.28% (478) in Bahrain.
Vital Signs Partnership is a group of organisations working together to campaign for better protection for low-paid migrant workers in the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The partnership includes the Center for Migrant Advocacy in the Philippines, the Centre for Indian Migrant Studies, the Law and Policy Forum for Social Justice in Nepal, Justice Project Pakistan, and the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) in Bangladesh.
Supporting organizations include Migrant-Rights.org, which documents migrant workers’ abuses within the GCC, and Migrant Forum Asia in the Philippines. The project is overseen by FairSquare Projects, a London-based non-profit human rights organisation.
There are approximately 30 million migrants in the Arab Gulf states, accounting for 52% of the region’s total population of 58 million. A significant proportion of these migrants - between 70 and 80% - work in low-paid sectors of the Gulf states’ economies, such as construction, hospitality and other service sectors, and domestic work.
Despite widespread criticism of their systematic abuse and exploitation in the international media, the data available on the deaths of migrant workers in the Gulf is incomplete, in places contradictory, and it precludes effective analysis of the extent and gravity of the problem.
The Vital Signs report says: "These problems are compounded by a general lack of transparency. However, despite the shortcomings of the data, it appears that as many as 10,000 migrant workers from south and southeast Asia die in the Gulf every year (this figure will obviously be higher when migrant workers of other nationalities are included) and that more than 1 out of every 2 deaths is effectively unexplained, which is to say that deaths are certified without any reference to an underlying cause of death, instead using terms such as “natural causes” or “cardiac arrest”.
The report noted that there is very limited data publicly available on the deaths of Bangladeshi migrant workers in the Gulf. Vital Signs in-country partner, RMMRU, was able to obtain country specific data from Shahjalal International Airport, Dhaka, where more than 90% of deceased Bangladeshis, including the vast majority of bodies of migrant workers from the Gulf states, are received.
However, no data is available on the causes of deaths nor on the characteristics of the returning deceased migrants. There are also some contradictions between the data from Shahjalal International Airport and figures provided by the government for the total number of deceased Bangladeshis returning each year through the country’s three international airports.
Vital Signs Partnership recommended that the governments of the Gulf Cooperation Council member-states establish specialised teams of inspectors and medical examiners to ensure that all deaths of migrant workers are investigated and certified in accordance with international best practices.
It added that the Gulf states should commission independent investigations into the causes of migrant workers’ deaths and ensure that any investigation examines the possible role played by heat and humidity, overwork, air pollution, psychosocial stress, and workers’ ability to access health care.
It called on the migrant recipient countries to make primary and emergency healthcare for low-paid migrant workers free of charge at the point of care, irrespective of the workers’ immigration status or their possession of health cards, and to ensure that fully resourced clinics and emergency rooms are in close proximity to areas with large populations of low-paid migrant workers.
