Abu Dhabi: India has launched a crackdown on illegal agents who send women to work as housemaids by bypassing official channels meant to protect workers, officials said.
Police detained an agent in the Southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, who illegally sent a woman to the UAE to work as a housemaid, causing her many troubles, a top Indian diplomat told Gulf News.
“Based on the information gathered from the distressed female domestic workers who came to our embassy last week, we have conveyed the details of recruitment agents, who had duped them, to the relevant agencies in India. I am happy that police authorities in Andhra Pradesh have already initiated action against some of the offenders,” said Navdeep Singh Suri, the Indian Ambassador to the UAE.
“I hope this will send a suitable warning to others who are engaged in the abhorrent business of trafficking in human beings and exploitation of vulnerable women,” he said.
As Gulf News reported on December 12, four women who reached here on visit/tourist visa approached the embassy for help after going through disturbing experiences at the hands of unscrupulous recruitment agents and employers.
S.V, 44, from Andhra Pradesh said she landed at a UAE airport [which she cannot identify] on June 7 and three agents received her and kept her at their office for 10 days. She was sent to a house in Abu Dhabi where she worked for 17 to 18 hours a day. As she received no salary, she went back to the agency who sent her to another Abu Dhabi house that paid her only Dh500 a month. She alleged physical abuse at employer’s home, ran away from there and took refuge at the embassy.
The agent in her hometown is being questioned by the police, Smita Pant, deputy head of the mission at the embassy told Gulf News on Thursday.
She said the embassy is following up the cases of three other women also with the Indian authorities.
The offenders will be booked for violating Indian emigration rules that have banned recruitment of housemaids under 30 [two women are under 30] and stipulated that eligible women should go abroad on an employment visa through eMigrate system that ensures their protection and welfare. They will also be slapped with various provisions of criminal laws, the diplomat said.
She said India has ordered that recruitment of all female workers, including domestic helps, who hold ECR (Emigration Clearance Required) category passports, should be done by seven official agencies only.
India issues ECR category passports to those who have not passed Grade 10 and hence they need emigration clearance before going to work in 18 ECR countries that include the Gulf nations. This rule was made applicable to qualified Indian nurses also when India banned their recruitment by private agents for overseas jobs since April 30, 2015.
A Government of India order on August 2, 2016, has further extended this rule all female workers including domestic workers. The same seven official agencies are authorised for the recruitment of the nurses as well.
Mainly, companies depend on the seven authorised agents while individual employers in the UAE recruit maids through eMigrate system by registering themselves as a foreign employer. They have to make a refundable deposit of Dh9,200 at the Indian Embassy or Consulate, which will be refunded once the maid goes back without any complaints after the contractual term.
None of the 1,200 registered private recruitment agents in India are authorised to recruit nurses and female workers under ECR category.
Six of the seven official agencies are based in South India. Uttar Pradesh Financial Corporation (UPFC) under the Government of Uttar Pradesh is the only agent in North India, said the diplomat.
Seven agencies authorised to recruit female workers:
- Non-Resident Keralites’ Affairs Department (NORKA-ROOTS), Kerala
- Overseas Development and Employment Promotion Consultants Ltd (ODEPC), Kerala
- Overseas Manpower Corporation Limited (OMCL), Chennai
- Uttar Pradesh Financial Corporation (UPFC), Uttar Pradesh
- Overseas Manpower Company A.P. Ltd, Andhra Pradesh
- Telangana Overseas Manpower Company Ltd, Telangana
- Commissionerate of Employment and Training, Government of Andhra Pradesh, Viajayawada
