“We have been informed that the workers have been working as bonded labor and have been deprived of their basic salary for as many as nine months,” a senior official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Republica.

The Nepali Embassy in Cairo carried out a study on the situation of the workers and found that they were in need of ‘immediate rescue’.

M-R.org note: Libya is emerging as a destination for Asian migrant labourers thanks to a construction boom triggered by oil wealth and recent economic liberalization. As job prospects have dwindled in countries such as the UAE and Bahrain since the financial crisis caused real estate projects to be put on hold, Libya is coming to be seen by the governments of labour-sending countries as an attractive alternative destination for migrant labourers. For one example, see this article, ‘Libya to hire thousands of Bangladeshis‘). However, North African country has an extremely poor record on human rights, so it remains to be seen how migrant workers will fare in Libya by comparison to the Gulf States. This story, plus this recent case of Bangladeshi workers being stranded without pay or food, suggests that there is a high chance of the problems faced by migrant workers in the GCC countries being replicated in Libya on a large scale.

In a similar case, the Nepali Embassy in Riyadh had to intervene to rescue 22 Nepalis who were working as ‘bonded labourers’ in a soap factory in Sudan.

The group of at least 46 workers arrived in Libya in April 2009 to work in construction. Each spent over $2,900 to get the opportunity to earn a better living in Libya. The workers were promised a salary of 360 Libyan Dinars ($290) per month for an eight-hour work day, but only given 230 ($185) for 11-hour work days for the first two months. After the first two months, they were given little sums of money and food. In November, this stopped too. The workers stopped being called to work, not given salaries or even food.

Since then, the workers have been living out in “a shabby abandoned camp with no sanitation and facilities”, according to one of the workers. The workers look for day jobs on the black market, trying to survive. On days when they can’t find work, they go hungry and sometimes boil leaves for food.

The family of one of the workers said that her husband isn’t sending back any money, but the interest on the sum he borrowed to be able to work in Libya is “going up every day”. The Bangladeshi embassy in Libya approached the Labour Ministry, but there’s no solution in sight for those stranded workers.