On Monday, Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) spokesman Raul Hernandez confirmed that a delegation, headed by DFA Undersecretary Rafael Seguis, had arrived in Iraq to meet ranking officials of the Iraqi government.

The DFA stated that the delegation is tasked to assess the possibility of reopening the PH embassy in Baghdad and the lifting of the ban on the deployment of OFWs to the war-torn country.

Reacting on the plan of the Aquino govt. to lift the ban on OFWs in Iraq, M-ME regional coordinator John Leonard Monterona cautioned the PH govt. saying “it is too early to lift the ban in Iraq, though this is in-line with the labor policy direction of the Aquino administration.”

“Basing on the reports we have been receiving on the ground from our fellow OFWs and linked non-government organizations, the peace and order situation in Iraq is still unstable as sporadic bombings and infightings are occurring,” Monterona said.

Monterona noted that it is because the internal conflict between the US-influenced Iraqi govt. forces and rebel groups is still intense manifested by daily infightings and bombings and encounters even in Baghdad and other major cities in Iraq.

“With such volatile peace and order situation in Iraq and when most of US military forces leaving in Iraq by December, we could almost foresee an escalation of the internal conflict in Iraq, thus lifting the ban on OFWs is not wise under such circumstances,” Monterona averred.

Monterona noted that last month the DFA had stopped marking newly released passports “Not Valid for travel to Iraq”.

“This is in-line with the Aquino govt. plan to eventually lift OFWs deployment ban to Iraq so that it could continue to peddle OFWs labor cheap in clear disregard to OFWs safety and well-being,” he added.

“It is now clearer that the Aquino administration’s labor policy direction is just a continuation of the preceding administration, which intensified the peddling of OFWs by re-exploring labor frontiers abroad even in war-torn countries as it could see pouring of developmental aids from the US and other imperialist countries,” Monterona added.

“By all indications, the Aquino administration, just like the previous administrations, will continue to rely on OFWs remittances sans protection of OFWs well being, rights, and welfare. The Aquino administration is geared to intensify its labor exportation program in its vain attempt to temporarily ease the problem of unemployment and underemployment and at the same time siphoned the billion dollars OFWs remittance that is keeping the economy afloat,” Monterona claimed.

Monterona ended saying: “The intensified labor export program will not solve the problem of unemployment, of OFWs rampant abuses and labor malpractices, of broken OFWs families, as it stirs high the social cost of forced migration.”

Written by:

John Leonard Monterona

Migrante-Middle East regional coordinator

Email: migranteme@gmail.com

Lebanon doesn’t recognize the Iraqis as refugees, and many Iraqis prefer not to try to apply for a refugee status with the UNHCR, and instead work on the black market. Because they don’t have the necessary documents and are employed illegally, the Iraqi workers are very vulnerable to exploitation. Isabelle Saad Feghali, a coordinator for Caritas a migrant rights NGO in Lebanon, told the paper that the Iraqis “may be working extra hours but they are not paid for them… They are constantly threatened – if they complain, if they do anything, the employer will inform the authorities.”

Lebanon is not a signatory of the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. Among other things, those treaties grant refugees the same rights nationals are accorded to when it comes to employment and social security.

The workers usually enter the country with tourist visas, and they stay undocumented, afraid of leaving their employer’s residence and being deported. Those workers are willing to accept pay twice or even three times less than that of Iraqis (from $100-$200 per month). The Iraqi Labor Ministry maintains that no work permits were given to migrant workers, which means that the workers employed in the country are doing it illegally, and thus, they enjoy no protection from the State. According to Ihsan al-Dhani, who runs a Baghdad-based agency bringing in Asian workers, Iraqi employers prefer Asian workers over locals because they are cheap and work hard. He plans on bringing 5,000 more Asian workers over the coming months into Iraq, and he hopes to recruit more if the security situation improves in the future. Al-Dhani claims that there have been no attempts by the government to shut down his business.

Companies in Jordan are accused of using the country as a transit point to forcefully send Asian workers to Iraq following the outbreak of war in 2003.

Some workers were allegedly lured to the kingdom with contracts in industrial zone areas and construction sectors, before they were shipped to Iraq, mostly against their wishes.

Unfortunately, not much has changed since then, and only now is legal action being taken, according to today’s IRIN News, one of the few sources following the development of this case:

AMMAN, 27 January 2009 (IRIN) – The Jordanian parliament has endorsed legislation to combat human trafficking in light of international complaints that local companies are sending foreign workers to Iraq against their will.

The law, endorsed on 25 January, paves the way for the creation of an anti-human trafficking commission to oversee its implementation. The commission will be affiliated to the Ministry of Labour and will include officials from the police and Ministry of Justice.

[...]

Labour leaders said on 26 January that forced labour was also widespread in factories across Jordan. Fathallah Emrani, president of the Jordan Federation of Textile Industry Workers, said the law could contribute to improving working conditions for thousands of foreign workers, particularly in Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZ), which have been subjected to various types of abuse.

“Here in Jordan many workers are subjected to slavery-like working conditions including beatings, prolonged working hours, work without payment or insufficient payment,” Emrani told IRIN.

He said awareness campaigns should be launched to educate employers on how to deal with workers.

Read the rest of the article here.

Darmianti binti Jaba Saleh only realised where she was when she pulled out the pile of money she had been given.

Written across the top of the notes were the words “Bank of Iraq”.

Darmianti was having her medical check-up prior to being placed as a domestic worker in the Kurdish north of Iraq.

The only problem was that she had not been told she was going to Iraq at all.

When she left her home in Indonesia, the agent sending her had told she was headed for Kurdistan – a safe place, he told her, on the border with Iraq.

Somewhere she could find a good job and make good money, much better than the money she had made a few years ago in Jordan.

But instead, Darmianti was flown to the Middle East, put in a taxi and driven five hours down to Arbil in northern Iraq.

‘Very afraid’

When she found out where she was, she said, she felt completely deceived.

“I wanted to go home that day,” she said. “I was very afraid, especially when we heard the booming sounds outside. We’d all be crying in our rooms.”

Read more here.

As waves of Iraqis flee their conflicted country, other desperate civilians are going in.

Migrant workers from some of the world’s poorest countries are being lured by the prospect of inflated salaries in construction or security companies. Some enter despite explicit bans in their own governments; others think they are going to work in safe countries.

But instead of the conventional jobs that were promised, traffickers are hustling them into hardship conditions with little pay and no mobility, according to groups that work with migrants and small numbers of migrants themselves who have managed to ask for help. Some of them are being sent home to such places as Sri Lanka, Ethiopia and the Philippines.

[...]

he Sri Lankans’ story speaks of the dangers the workers are exposed to. All 30 of them, in their 20s and 30s, were seeking work as carpenters on construction sites in the United Arab Emirates.

But, having paid about $2,000 to a legal employment agency in Colombo, the men fell victim to traffickers on route, the International Organization of Migration says. Their agency, Arabian Express, denies any wrongdoing and says the men never showed up when its representative went to meet them in Dubai, according to press reports.

Houver said, “It is unclear who is at fault, but the whole phenomenon started while they were transiting in the Gulf.”

Read the full article here.