Exploited and Trapped in Dubai

A group of men have been sleeping rough in a Karama park for the past six months after their passports were stolen by a recruitment agent when they arrived in Dubai. At least 30 Indians now regard the park as their home, as they have no money to rent accommodation and cannot get jobs as they are regarded as illegal workers.

“This little park has become our home for the past six months. We sleep on the grass and look towards the sky hoping that there won’t be rain or dust storms... Sometimes we remain awake all night as it is too cold to sleep,” said Bukke Shiva Rao, a 32-year-old Indian worker from the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
He said that he sleeps in the park at night and goes out during the daytime looking for work. “No one is ready to provide us with a job as we are illegals and do not hold any identification documents to prove our credentials. Our only aim is to return to our country but we need help,” he added. “We have no idea for how many more days we will be suffering like this. One of our colleagues went out recently and broke his arm. He is still desperately looking for treatment. There are also many others who are suffering with various other ailments,” said another worker, Y Rajesh.
A Dubai-based social worker has been providing free food to the group on a daily basis. The men said that they came to the country at the time when the amnesty was announced last year but mounting debts back home forced them to try to find jobs, rather than take advantage of the grace period.
“We borrowed huge sums of money to come here and the interest rate has been climbing every month. We thought we could earn good money staying here. However we failed to find jobs due to strict labour laws introduced after the end of the amnesty period,” said Rajesh who paid dhs10,000 to an agent to come to Dubai.
Indian Consulate officials said that they would contact the workers and try to help them. “We will get in touch with the workers to find out why they are stranded in the country and try to provide them air tickets so that they can fly home,” BS Mubarak, Consul for Labour Affairs in the Indian Consulate, told 7DAYS.