Gov’t to head to Majlis to dissolve clause limiting recruitment of migrant workers

The government is to head to the People’s Majlis to dissolve the restrictions on the recruitment of migrant workers to the island nation.

This was revealed by the Minister of Homeland Security and Technology Ali Ihusaan, while speaking at the parliament’s National Security Services Committee on Tuesday.

As such, Ihusaan stated that the motion to drop the limit highlighted in the employment act that prohibits the recruitment of more than 100,000 laborers from foreign countries, will be submitted at the People’s Majlis.

He said this in response to a question posed by North Maafannu MP Mohamed Nazim, regarding the issue of undocumented migrant workers in the island nation.

He said that the halting of recruiting Bangladeshi workers among the migrant workers, was a matter of concern.

Further adding that he believes it was important to bring migrant workers to boost the energy of the country's work force, the lawmaker stressed that doing so would amount to discrimination against a particular country.

Nazim shed light on the difficulties in recruiting laborers from countries other than Bangladesh.

Responding to these questions, Ihusaan stated that the incumbent administration had learned that Maldives had more than 90,000 Bangladeshi laborers presently residing in the island nation.

Ihusaan added that the limit of 100,000 will be reached as soon as the current ban is dissolved.

Presently, the law mandates the number of migrant workers from each country, to be limited at 100,000.

However, the minister stated that there were issues in this procedure. As such, It was found that companies that were earlier blacklisted were whitelisted to recruit migrant workers.

Ihusaan added that the issue of migrant workers being brought and released into the capital as per the rules, has been observed.

Highlighting that there are at least 96,000 Bangladeshi workers in the Maldives presently, the minister stated that their recruitment until 100,000 reached, was halted because there were issued that needed to be resolved.

Ihusaan stated that the government was making several efforts to address the issue of undocumented migrants residing illegally in the Maldives.

He added that a system of authentic data on migrants is in the process of being established.