Shattered and desperate, they see hope in escape

Staff Reporter

MANY of the skilled and unskilled labourers who come to Qatar in the hope of making their future, find themselves totally shattered and hopeless soon after their arrival here, a local Arabic daily has said in a report.
The labourers are shocked to find that the rosy picture that was painted for them before they left their home country was just a dream. The grim reality of meagre salary and shoddy living conditions stuns them.
Out of desperation many of them flee from their employers to find piecemeal jobs as and when possible and manage to survive for some time. But since the number of such absconders has increased and since they constitute a security threat, the authorities have recently launched an “operation
round-upâ€‌.
The Lakhwiya (Internal Security Force) has set up a detention centre to arrest all such individuals and arrange for their deportation to their respective home countries.
The Arabic daily’s representative met several of those held in the detention centre. Each person had his own sad and pathetic story to narrate. Durga Bahadur, a man in his late twenties, had this to say: “I have been in Doha for the past six years. I am suffering from a permanent disability as a result of my fall from a height in the building in which I was working here. The moment my sponsor learnt about the cost involved in my surgery and treatment he had me removed from the hospital. I should have undergone a surgery that could have restored me to my normal movements. I had put in five years of honest and hard work with my sponsor before this accident happened. My sponsor’s attitude towards me became very callous after the accident and I had the feeling that he was planning to send me back home. It was for this reason that I fled from him and tried to earn some money.â€‌
Another detainee, Harkadesh Varma, said: “I came here and worked for my sponsor sincerely with a salary of only QR500 per month. But the sponsor’s accountant was very strict with me and began to cut my salary for any day of absence due to illness or for delay in reaching the work site. Hence I requested for release and permission to work elsewhere but since they did not agree, I had to abscond and find work. I have a large family to support back in my
country.â€‌
Yet another detainee, Husam Ali Abdullah who is in early thirties, said: “I came here 18 months ago on an agreed salary of QR1,500 per month exclusive of overtime. However I was shocked to receive only QR700 per month in the first month of my work and gradually they started decreasing the salary every month. I became frustrated and had to escape from my sponsor.â€‌
Commenting on this problem, the officer in-charge of the patrol unit of Lakhwiya, Capt Khalid Faris al-Muhannadi, agreed that most of these labourers have absconded from their sponsors because of the low salaries and the unfair treatment meted out to them. “We record a statement of facts made by each person with the help of interpreters and try our best to be fair and helpful to them. Our patrol units visit the labour camps and certain joints where such absconders usually meet and take into custody 60 to 140 persons on charges of non-renewal of their residence permits or for having absconded from their sponsors. We have also detected some absconders who manage to work in more than one place. It is a matter of regret that the recruiting agents in the home countries of these expatriates manage to convince them with false promises,â€‌ he added