13/08/2020
No pay for 5 months, passports withheld: Indians stranded in Kuwait plead for help | The News Minute
No pay for 5 months, passports withheld: Indians stranded in Kuwait plead for help
The 88 construction workers, including 37 Indians, are demanding their wages and ight tickets to return to their respective countries.
NEWS LABOUR & EMPLOYMENT | MONDAY, AUGUST 10, 2020 - 07:48
Nikhil Eapen Follow @nikhil_eapen
Eighty-eight migrant workers, including 37 Indian nationals, employed by Al-Raqeeb Buildings General Contracting Company,
a labour supply rm in Kuwait, have not been paid since March this year. Their employer cut off their water supply in April,
stopped their ration and threatened to “kick them around like a football”. The company is even refusing to give back these
workers their passports.
As the coronavirus pandemic raged across the country, the men slept hungry, with twelve crammed in one room. “It’s hard
to explain the insult and mental toll in icted on us,” said Sathish Ayyavu, a 31-year-old construction worker from Tamil
Nadu, who is owed 600 Kuwaiti Dinar (about Rs 1,47,500) by his employer. Most of the Indian migrant workers are from
Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Telangana. The other migrants are from Nepal and Bangladesh.
Al-Raqeeb Buildings General Contracting Company provides labourers to various government and private construction sites
in the Gulf state, mostly for projects in the oil and gas sector. Last year, Al-Raqeeb, due to its poor human rights record,
was blacklisted by the Indian Embassy in Kuwait for workers 'to avoid'.
https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/no-pay-5-months-passports-withheld-indians-stranded-kuwait-plead-help-130392?fbclid=IwAR2YtxmZE10fS_RmLoF0mJShXRoK57P9_reA-rDN8V0kBzkj7UG7dwEhiVs
1/3