La Strada Documentation Center

From Bahrain to Malaysia: Mobilising to Defend Migrants' Rights

Document number
2591
Date
2010
Title
From Bahrain to Malaysia: Mobilising to Defend Migrants' Rights
Author/publisher
International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)
Availability
View/save PDF version of this document
Document type(s)
Research/Study/Analysis,
Keywords
Irregular Migration, Feminization of migration, Economic migration, Labour migration, Free movement, Undocumented migrants; Undocumented labour;
Summary
According to various estimates, there are between 15 and 20 million migrants working in the six countries making up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC): Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait. Currently, not a single one of these rich economies would be able to survive without this migrant labour that makes up close to 90% of the active population in certain countries. Nonetheless, the fate they have been faced with for years is alarming: unpaid wages, excessive working hours, heavy debts contracted to cover the exorbitant fees charged by the recruitment agencies, the withholding of their passports, ire living conditions, multiple forms of discrimination... plus the absolute isolation and psychological and physical abuses endured by women migrant domestic workers in the region
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