No recourse to help Hari had worked for Nasser S. Al Hajri, one of the largest industrial contractors in the Middle East, as a carpenter and painter for thirteen years before his job was terminated without notice in July. He was promised redundancy pay by his manager before the company arranged for his return to India – but he is yet to be paid. “They will not rehire me after the pandemic because I’m 53 years old. My family is in a financial crisis and I need that money to survive,” he said. As many as 600 workers are allegedly owed wages and redundancy pay from the Saudi construction firm, according to Lawyers Beyond Borders, who have launched legal action on behalf of former employees. Among them, half are from Kerala. Nasser S. Al Hajri did not respond to a request for comment by openDemocracy. For workers like Hari, recovering stolen wages is almost impossible. Before he was returned to India, Hari and his colleagues were pushed to sign several legal documents by his employer, which they believe waived their rights. “This makes the possibility of retrieving the money through labour offices in Saudi Arabia minimal. Filing these legal cases in India is not an adequate solution either,” said Lawyers Beyond Borders solicitor Subhash Chandran. Most workers are not aware of how to report their employers for withholding wages, leading to cases being registered late and delayed investigations. And there are complicated issues of legal jurisdiction. Those who have returned to Kerala cannot file legal cases against their employers without a power of attorney in their destination country. "The existing justice mechanism has largely failed migrant workers in terms of an expedited and just resolution of wage-theft claims even before the pandemic,” said William Gois, Regional Coordinator of Migrant Forum in Asia.