UAE | Visa
Enduring an endless wait
Book your return flight in Kish, said the travel agent when we told him we wished to come back to Dubai the next day. "I can't make the reservation from here," he said.
- By Mahmood Saberi, Staff Reporter
- Published: 00:00 September 24, 2006
- Time passes painfully slowly on Kish Island. Workers waiting for their UAE visas while away the time by sleeping, smoking the shisha or watching television on this minuscule patch of land in the Arabian Gulf.
- Image Credit: Hadrian Hernandez/Gulf News
Dubai: Book your return flight in Kish, said the travel agent when we told him we wished to come back to Dubai the next day. "I can't make the reservation from here," he said.
Those who take Kish Air to the Iranian island from Dubai or Sharjah usually do not know when they will return.
On the island time moves inexorably slowly. People spend their days intently watching the TV screen in their room, sleeping, or smoking sheesha on the beach late into the night as the little money they bring with them slowly runs out.
Kish Island, a free zone area of Iran, is a halfway house for hundreds of skilled and unskilled workers from Asian and Arab nations who come to Dubai on visit visas to find jobs.
They come to Kish to get an extension of their visas, change visit to employment visas, or for a job switch, a transfer of sponsorship.
"I had enough of watching the stock market," said Aijaz, still able to make a joke about his situation. The 'stock market' he refers to is a constantly updated list of names that appears on the TV screen. Next to the names is the nationality of each person and in another column their visa number.
The people with their names on the screen are the lucky ones. Their visa papers have arrived by fax at the Farabi hotel and they now could make their return reservations to leave.
But there are many who are not so lucky. An Indian worker recently had enough of the tense waiting and after losing all hope of getting back to Dubai, decided to kill himself. "He jumped from the third floor, but he did not die. He is in hospital now," said Ivy, a Filipina, who lived in the same block in the hotel as the unfortunate man.
This was corroborated by others, including Andy Bulaon, another Filipino, who has been working in Kish for the past 2-1/2 years as a waiter after failing to get an extension for his visit visa to Dubai. He and his wife work at the Rodalei Hotel which serves Filipino cuisine.
Widespread racket
"Last year a Chinese guy went berserk in the hotel and went running around naked," he said.
One Indian from Tamil Nadu state has been on Kish for six months.
We landed on a Saturday. Across the Gulf waters, Dubai had started the new weekend and all government offices were shut.
Joe's visit visa had expired on a Thursday. The Indian worker had to get out of the UAE fast or he would have to pay a Dh100 fine for every day after that and then would be blacklisted. So he was whiling away the day here, and hoping his visa would arrive the next day when the Dubai Naturalisation and Residency Department opened after the weekend.
The visit visa racket is widespread and firms such as car rental, courier and cargo companies, as well as travel agencies sell their visas for around Dh1,300 to people desperate to come to Dubai for work. These are valid for 60 days. You then have to go out of the country to extend it for another 60 days.
An Indian businessman dealing in scrap metal, who had come to get his visa renewed, said it would save people a lot of money and bother if the visa change or extension process could be done in the UAE itself.
"All the underhand dealings would stop," he said. "Why do you have to be sent out? The country [UAE] will make more revenue if all this is stopped," D.P. Kalra said.
The visit visa is also a way for human traffickers to get sex workers into the country. The hotel in which we stayed had a number of girls from Arab and African countries who apparently had done the visa run a number of times before.
Mohan, a construction worker at a company in Al Quoz, said the Kish police had raided the hotel only a few days before and taken an Indian from his room. The man had not been able to pay the hotel charges, he said.
It is cheap labour for many employers in Dubai to hire workers on visit visas.
"Some employers tell such workers to go to Kish and get a visa extension," said Mohan. The employer then hires another visit visa worker. Many construction workers go through this tension-filled wait and still do not get paid their salaries in time, he said.
Many forgotten workers get sent back to Dubai and are then deported to their home countries.
Your comments
Dubai seems to have enough of revenue so the point of generating revenue for Dubai by allowing people to change/extend their visas in Dubai itself makes no sense. The government should know exactly what intention is the Visa applied for first of all. Any visit visa trying to be converted into employment/residence visa should be done in a legal and convienent way. Thus avoiding any hassle and pain to the visa holders who undergo enough pain trying to pay agents huge sums for obtaining visas in Dubai/UAE.
Peter
Muscat,Oman
I think attention should be called to the beginning of the exit procedure and not only the situation in Kish Island. The planes being used for transferring the people from Dubai to Kish or those that are being used for touch down exit should be checked. Being in Kish is ok but the fear of coming back to Dubai because of the plane is something that frightened the passengers.
Yel
Dubai,UAE
There's a lot of trouble you may encounter in Kish, here is very good example. My friend went to Kish for a change visa but when she came back to Dubai the hotel gave her another passport and she didn't notice until she arived in Dubai. She stayed in immigration in Dubai until late at night. How is it possible that in immigration in Kish they allow the person whose handling another passport even by mistake. Are they really checking or not?
Cathy
Dubai,UAE
It is best to charge affordable money to the visit visas extention done in the country rather than going to Kish. Most of the visit visa holders have empty pockets which sometimes lead to crime. Most of these aliens won't go back go back to their country of origin.
Evelyn
Dubai,UAE
The facts mentioned in your article are very true and need immediate attention. If people can change their visas without going to Kish or another place it's good and the UAE will get more revenue. People are wasting money for air fares and stay there.
Vinod
Dubai,UAE
Really people are suffering, wehave enough experience from our friends Any way people they are spending the money. It's better authority to take their fees without travel avoiding the travel and other harassments.
KR
Sharjah,UAE
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