Abu Dhabi: Members of major expatriate communities in the UAE are able to complain or seek assistance on labour issues in their own languages thanks to a new initiative of the Ministry of Labour.

At the ministry’s call centre to answer the queries of residents, it has recently assigned representatives speaking 12 more languages of major expatriate communities in the country, a senior official told Gulf News.

This initiative is to ensure that all workers in the country who are not fluent in Arabic, English and Urdu/ Hindi can easily communicate with the ministry representatives, Mohammad Bin Dukhain, director of the government communication department at the ministry said in an interview.

The main menu of the ministry’s toll free number [800665] has three languages- Arabic, English and Urdu.

The ministry has appointed the representatives speaking 12 more languages such as Chinese, Russian, French, Tagalog (Filipino), Bengali, Pashtu (Pakistan), Farsi, Nepalese, Somali and Indian languages of Malayalam, Tamil and Punjabi, the official said.

He explained that these 12 languages are not in the main menu of the toll free number so that callers cannot speak those languages from the beginning of the call.

But when the call centre representatives finds that the caller is not fluent in the any of three major languages he opted from the main menu [Arabic, English and Urdu/Hindi], they ask his or her mother tongue. If it is among those 12 languages, the representative transfers the call to a representative speaking that language, Bin Dukhain said.

“Now those who speak those 12 languages can directly request to speak to a representative speaking that particular language.”

He said the callers also lodge a complaint at the call centre. “They will receive a reply to the complaint within five days.”

Alternatively residents can also lodge complaints or seek information about labour issues on the ministry’s web portal- http://www.mol.gov.ae.

The ministry’s initiative to introduce more languages in the call centre will benefit millions of expatriates in the country. The presence of at least four major Indian languages will help almost all Indians whose over two million citizens constitute the largest expatriate community in the UAE. Malayalam, one of the newly introduced languages, is spoken by about a million people in the UAE. Urdu, Hindi and Pashtu will also help almost everyone among over a million Pakistanis who are the second largest expatriate community.