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Expatriates in the Maldives: The Untold Story

BLAST FROM THE PAST
The following is an article published in the very short lived internet dissent magazine MAVERICK issue no. 3 (released February 2003). Maverick published their magazine anonymously fearing problems from the Gayyoom Government. It has been a year since they last published an issue of the magazine and the fate of its editors in unknown.

Maldivians have been noted as hospitable people by various visitors. While Maldives is enjoying a lucrative income as a tourist destination, recent reports have raised doubts about the level of hospitality we extend to foreigners.

Maldives has always maintained a close relationship with Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans. This did not necessarily exist only between governments of the two countries, but between the people who visited from one country to the other for trade, education and other needs.

Since English-medium education was introduced to Maldives, a number of Sri Lankan teachers had come and stayed in the Maldives, some of them staying for a very long time. Several schools in Male' as well as the students who emerged from those schools, are indebted to the services of those teachers.

Yet, during the second week of December 2002, hundreds of people protested in Colombo over the plight of Sri Lankan prisoners in Maafushi detention camp in the Maldives. They called for the closure of Maldives High Commission in Sri Lanka. News reports covering the event and the inhuman treatment expatriate workers are facing in Maldives jails made headlines in Sri Lankan media.

Sources say a second protest was organized even more recently. An association, Parents and Guardians of Sri Lankan Prisoners in Maldives, has been formed to secure the release of Sri Lankan prisoners in Maafushi. The association has highlighted the atrocities the Maldivian police commit on jailed expatriates.

Recently the prison system in the Maldives has received a lot of attention. Its irregularities, the tortures that occur inside the prison walls and the violation of basic human rights have been exposed to an extent.

In October 2002 the government of Australia intervened asking for the release of an Australian surfer, Mark Scanlon, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment in 2000 for bringing 57 grams of cannabis oil to the Maldives. Scanlon, 47, was arrested on July 7, 2000 and was kept in jail in the Maldives for over two years in miserable conditions before he was released due to pressure from Australian government.

His wife, Mandy Andrews, worked hard to secure his release, writing a letter for people to send to the government of the Maldives and to Australian Prime Minister. The letter was circulated through surfing magazines and websites and played a key role in securing Scanlon's release.

The news was covered in The Sun-Herald on December 8, 2002 and later in Sydney Morning Herald website.

"Scanlon was held with 85 other prisoners - including rapists, murderers and Sri Lankan revolutionaries - in a cell about the size of three classrooms. It had only three toilets and the prisoners were not allowed outside. Scanlon also spent time in solitary confinement.

While in jail he lived on a diet of rice and watery curry and was allowed no phone calls or letters and only the Koran to read.

His only contact with the outside world was an hourly visit once a month from his wife, who had moved to the Maldives to support him," the report in The Sun-Herald said.

The prisons in the Maldives have also received attention because of the death of a young Maldivian boy in January 2003 following intense torture by the police.

"A young Maldivian man has died in a coma at Malé's Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital, after being bashed while in NSS custody at Maafushi island prison. Ali Shaahir, 19, from Maimagumatheege house in Malé's Maafannu ward, was arrested on a minor charge after an altercation with other young men. He was held in custody for 25 days, and when the family reported him as a missing person they were told Ali was in a coma in Maafushi prison. The boy is believed to have been bashed by NSS staff after he refused to sign a statement," MaldivesCulture.com reported.

"Ali was still comatose when he was sent from Maafushi prison to hospital in Malé in a dhoni vessel. The trip to Malé from Maafushi takes approximately 2 hours and there were no medical facilities on the boat. At the hospital a senior Maldivian doctor, Ahmed Razi, is believed to have signed the death certificate. People who prepared the body for burial are believed to have seen bleeding from Ali's nostrils and ears. There were allegations that the x-rays of the body were deliberately distorted to hide evidence of Ali's injuries," Maldivesculture.com, which is blocked in the Maldives for its highly critical stance on the government, said.

President Gayyoom is said to have visited the Maafushi detention centre following the incident. An investigation is supposed to be going on, and Maldivesculture.com said a Corporal, Mohamed Shahdhee, is believed to be in police custody over the matter. The recent events show that torture and human rights violation is an inherent part of Maldives prison system and that atrocities are committed not only against expatriates but against Maldivians as well.

The prisons in the Maldives are run by Department of Corrections, a department under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Police does not come under the Home Ministry but the influence of police on jails is significant. Some of the places where people are detained are directly under police control while Department of Corrections has control over prisons in which only sentenced prisoners are kept.

Recently the administration of Department of Corrections was handed over to a lawyer. Even though the media did not verify it, there have been reports that the previous person in charge of Department of Corrections, Isthafa Ibrahim Maniku, was removed from his post. Isthafa has earned a bad reputation as a ruthless man and some people also believe he was involved in major embezzlement of government funds.

The removal of Isthafa, and putting a man whom the public will accept more, may be a tactical move by President Gayyoom, when he realized that the dirty tales of Maldivian prisons were making sensations in neighboring countries and among the local public.

Reports in Sri Lankan media mention forced confessions, regular beatings and lack of adequate medical care. The association working for the release of Sri Lankan prisoners claimed that two Indians had died recently in Maldives prisons while another committed suicide following intense torture.

The association also alleged the Maafushi jail is maintained by funds from the UN and that part of the money had become a lucrative source of income for the Maldives government.

Expatriates in Maafushi jail are not the only ones who are suffering. In February 2003 local daily Haveeru reported the plight of the expatriates who came to the Maldives looking for jobs. Some of them have not been paid wages for months while medical care and other benefits have been denied. Some of them suffer from intense hunger as employers do not provide them with adequate food. Lousy accommodation is given. Some of them come after selling their homes to raise funds to come to the Maldives. They come with the hope that they could send some money to the families back home. But they have to suffer miserably in the Maldives while their dependents back home suffer as well.

The recruiting agents have made a lucrative business out of it, charging from the expatriate workers outrageous amounts. Sometimes the agents demand a percentage of the wage the foreign worker receives. The employers are negligent in paying for the visa of the foreign workers, making their stay illegal in the Maldives.

It is for such offences as the overstaying of visa that many foreigners are first arrested. Then they are tortured and made sign false statements. Then they are sent to the hell of Maafushi.

The Labor Ministry in the Maldives does not take firm action against the people who ill-treat the expatriates. Often the poor foreigner has to leave without getting the wages. The Labor Ministry tells the poor workers that they could be sent to their home countries if they wish. If they want to get their due wages, they have to go to court. For the semi-skilled and unskilled workers, some of them barely literate, filing the cases at court and claiming for their wages is not a very easy option. Even for Maldivians the courts of the country are not very pleasant.

There are reasons to believe there is negligence on the part of the government in tackling this problem. Recruiting expatriates is a profitable business for the recruiting agencies. However, the fees that have to be paid to Labor Ministry for visa and permits are high and there are multiple procedures one has to go through before an expatriate worker could be hired. The high fees are supposedly for discouraging importing foreign labor. However, it is reasonable to think that the recruiting agencies would pay a commission or bribe for the officials of Labor Ministry to speed up the lengthy procedures. For companies, a quota is allocated for hiring foreign workers, once again to restrict the import of foreign labor, and sometimes certain companies have worked around this quota hiring more workers than allowed. All this is done through a favor or a bribe involving the Labor Ministry officials. Depending on the level of corruption in the Maldives, this is hardly surprising.

Hence, it is clear that the employers - mostly business firms - and the recruiting agencies have excellent relations with Labor Ministry officials. Thus a complaint by a poor foreign worker against the employers will not make much impact.

There are 30,664 expatriate workers currently employed in the Maldives. Most of them are from neighboring countries. The continuous ill-treatment of the foreign workers at the hands of their employers and the torture of foreign prisoners by police have serious implications. Many Maldivians visit countries such as Sri Lanka and India regularly for medical care, business and other reasons. A number of Maldivian students are also staying in Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh. Even though not all

Maldivians treat the expatriates badly, retaliation for the actions of some Maldivians could be faced by any Maldivian visiting the said countries.

What protection could our government give for us if something like that happens? Will it ask the governments of those countries to protect us? Already things are reaching a sensitive state at diplomatic levels. High Commissions of the neighboring countries based in the Maldives are at a loss as what to do with the hundreds of complaints filed by expatriate workers in the Maldives. Immigration officials in India recently threatened to deport a Maldivian, apparently based on a false report. When he asked for a reason, he was told whether the Maldivian authorities give a reason for numerous deportations of foreign workers.

The expatriate workers had protested in front of the High Commissions and the Labor Ministry on at least two occasions during the past three years. They were arrested and most of them are believed to have been deported. Demonstrations and protests are not allowed in the Maldives, and the expatriate workers were believed to have set bad examples for Maldivians. The regime in the Maldives has a perpetual fear of public gatherings.

The past few years have also seen an increase in expatriate-bashing in the media. Some of the articles that were published in Monday Times were of that nature. The government may be deliberately highlighting the expatriates as a group to direct hatred. The regime regularly employ wag-the-dog tactics and bringing to the front the expatriate labor as a problem may be in line with some of the extreme racist tendencies adopted by certain political parties in certain countries. Key government officials have publicly spoken about the economic effects of hiring foreign labor such as the outflow of foreign currency.

Yet, it is ironic because a number of government offices have hired expatriates even for jobs for which Maldivians could be available. At Theemuge, the Presidential Palace, a number of Nepalese workers are employed. For a good pay, several Maldivians would be willing to work in the same jobs at the Presidential Palace.

It is true that social problems arise because of the expatriate workers. However, this is unavoidable when we bring people from different cultures and societies. It is true that some of the foreign workers go peddling drugs on our streets. However, there are many Maldivians, some of them even in high posts, who are involved in the lucrative drug trade. According to Sandhaanu, an underground email newsletter circulated during 2001, even the Commissioner of Police Adam Zahir is one.

It is true that three expatriates were implicated on gang raping and murder of a Maldivian girl. Yet, it was three Maldivians, all ex-cops, that the court found guilty for the brutal murder of a girl, Azleena Nafess, employed at Maldives Chamber of Commerce. Similarly, an old woman was killed when she discovered some Maldivian youth drinking and using drugs.

When we speak about the expatriates as evil monsters are we actually trying to cover up the problems created by us? Are we trying to put a veil on the social problems that are poisoning our own society? Our young generation is lost to drugs and sex. Our civil servants are trapped in a vicious circle of corruption.

It is the bourgeoisie Maldivians who are hiring expatriates as babysitters. Would our young people be willing to work in the dump trucks and Ufuli, the barge that carries garbage to Thilafushi, the paradise island of Umar Zahir? Would our own workers go and pave our own streets?

The wealthy Maldivians are hiring the poor, illiterate workers of South Asia and treating them like garbage, in violation of fundamental human rights. While the accounts of the wealthy Maldivians located at foreign banks grow, the families of the expatriate workers are struggling hard to survive in one of the most pathetic region of the world. The Maldivian police torture is equally horrifying.

The President of the Maldives is currently in Saudi Arabia for a Hajj pilgrimage. It is a pilgrimage in which people of different color, race and ethnicity walk side by side, casting aside all racial and ethnic prejudices and enhancing the message of human dignity and equality. But while he is at Mecca, his police are inflicting inhuman cruelty on prisoners, and his government is continuing lending a deaf ear to the plight of expatriate workers.

End

Editorial Note

We would like to point out that the Gayyoom Administration is the largest employer of foreign laborers in the Republic of Maldives. These laborers are paid somewhere between US$60 – US$80 per month. They are housed in giant warehouses based in the island of Thilafushi just near Male’ to avoid the public from finding out. They work for 14 to 15 hours a day doing hard labour without any holidays and the overall condition of these foreign expatriates could only be described as State sponsored slavery.

Read more about expatriates in Maldives by downloading MAVERICK issue no. 3