Speaking in a webinar on 30 September 2020 on the topic “Migrants Rights in the Time of Predatory Developmentalism” which is a part of a webinar series titled “Transitions in International Migrants’ Rights Governance: Towards Inclusive and Rights Based Public Policy” organized by Centre for West Asian Studies, School of International Relations and Politics (SIRP) Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala, India, Dr. Bijulal M.V., Chair Person of the center said that Bilateral Agreement need to focus on human rights of workers in Gulf Countries. At his point these issues are not taken seriously by both sending and receiving countries, mentioned.
Dr. Bijulal M.V. Chairperson, Centre for West Asian Studies, School of International relations and Politics (SIRP) Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala, India introduced the theme in the context of migrant workers of informal categories from India to the Gulf countries, based on his research since 2006. Major arguments were that human rights situations in the Gulf countries, in relation to the “expatriate labor”, was conditioned by issues related to violations of domestic laws in both countries as wells as serious lapses to respect and implement specific outcomes of human rights discourses on labor rights issues, which were evolving since early 20th century in the United Nations platforms, in the main. The actualization of commitments through ratifications and Constitutional amendments in the case of India even fell short to make permanent mechanisms to help the most marginalized communities of workers especially women and men in laboring situations where national labor laws in the Gulf countries are not applicable. He also mentioned that specific mention to workable governance mechanisms that respect human rights of workers are absent in most of the bilateral official documents and processes regarding the labor. Safe migration or methods for skills up gradation, grievance redressal mechanisms related to wide-ranging wage denials and wage theft are not actually taking place.
He referred the labour-capital relationship in this situation to human trafficking according to the prescriptions of the Palermo protocol, as well as conditions of modern and contemporary forms of slavery which are widely used in civil society and academic literature on denials of labour rights. He also noted that the crisis of migrants involves a larger citizenship issue in the sense that while being formal citizens by birth in India most Indian workers lose their inalienable human rights in the ordeal of forced or undignified work in these countries referring to a liminal condition. He said that after innumerable human tragedies, deaths, policy mechanism and the academic and other expert mechanisms have made little progress to create a situation so that the States involved adopt some basic workable practices so that citizenship as a pack of rights get respected in the condition of “nowhereness” they live in. He also mentioned that the nowhereness and in- betweennes of citizens of India or similar states are being unfortunately romanticized to suggest that migration involves lot of hardship. Referring to the situation of tacit justification of suffering, he mentioned that such instruments of reason are invariably the methods to support high capitalism which talks about the necessity and pace of development forgetting every other aspect involved in this process. The laborers rights and welfare in the first sense.
He said that this migration corridor has a very specific connectionexposing various dimensions of urbanization and industrialization using migrant labor of modern slavery category at least since late 1990s, since thelaboring situations got completely reversed to relationship changes between capital and state power in these countries. He referred to several successful civil society initiatives collective in terms of influencing governments to intervene and rescue many people, which is a fundamental victory of the Indian and labor rights committees working across different geographies. It was also mentioned that the academic community has to engage in creating critical data and perspectives based on the widespread experiences.
The usual studies on flow or use of remittance related empiricism should not overshadow the questions of human rights in a larger sense.
Bijulal M.V. is currently faculty at the school of IR and Politics MG University Kottayam. He specialises in Human Rights of Informal Migrant workers and teaches courses in Human Rights, Political Theory, Gender and Politics. He is part of the Civil Society initiatives on Migrant Human Rights.