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Like millions before him, Manoj migrated from the southwestern Indian state of Kerala to the Gulf in search of work in 2019. He found a job at a construction company in Bahrain that described itself as a “regional leader”. The pay, at 240 dinars (£577) a month, was far more than he could expect to find at home.
Last February, as cases of COVID-19 soared in Bahrain, the company stopped paying Manoj and two dozen other employees. When they complained, their employer stopped providing food and accommodation, too.
Manoj and his colleagues refused to leave and continued to demand their unpaid wages. “Once they realised we will not back off, they offered to give us back our passports and pay for our return to Kerala under the condition that we give up our unpaid wages,” he said. They rejected the offer. “They cut off our electricity after that.”
Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs Sarah Lou Arriola
MANILA, Mar. 13 The Philippines successfully steered discussions on “Labor Mobility and Human Rights: Examining Migrant Labor Governance in the Middle East in the Context of Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM)” on 11 March 2021, the second day of the regional review of the implementation of the GCM conducted by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP).
Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs Sarah Lou Arriola, who was elected as Chair of UNESCAP’s Asia-Pacific Regional Review of the Implementation of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration from 10-12 March 2021 in Bangkok, delivered the Philippine statement during the discussions. Arriola related how the problems of overseas Filipino workers such as the confiscation of their passports by their employers and the lack of labor mobility