Kerala is unique in India when it comes to international migration. From the 19th century onwards, Keralites migrated to all corners of the British Empire, a trend which continued long after India gained independence in 1947. In the 1970s, an oil boom created a surge in demand for labourers in the Gulf, largely filled by Keralites who were drawn there by a lack of employment opportunities at home and the promise of higher wages. By 2018, almost two million Keralites were working in the Gulf, accounting for every one in four Indian migrants. Initially, most Keralites in the Gulf were employed in the construction sector and other low-skilled jobs in the service sector. But over the years, they have taken up semi and high-skilled occupations, such as fire and safety engineers, nurses, care workers and business administrators. Contracts abruptly terminated Since the pandemic began, close to 900,000 Keralites have been repatriated from around the world, the highest number of any Indian state. Almost 95% returned from the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait. Many migrant workers in the Gulf were left without the right to remain in their destination country when their employment contracts were terminated at the start of the pandemic. Under the Kafala (or ‘sponsorship’) system in place across many Gulf countries, migrant workers’ citizenship is dependent on an employment contract with a specific employer – and workers are not free to change jobs. “Kafala is like modern slavery,” said Khalid Ibrahim, Executive Director at the Gulf Centre for Human Rights. “They hold your passport, so you are not allowed to leave the country, and they pay you as much as they want, mostly not proportional to the size of your work. And you have no right to defend anything, your colleagues or yourself, you have no rights, no access to unions,” he added.