A meeting of the People’s Majlis Committee on National Security and Foreign Relations held on Wednesday morning to deliberate on the issue of expatriate workers living in the Maldives, has been held behind closed doors.

Placed on Wednesday’s agenda was to meet with relevant institutions in light of the recent spike in protests being staged by expatriate workers.

The decision to hold the committee meeting behind closed doors was reached upon the request of seniors of the Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF) who took part in the meeting.

During previous committee meetings, relevant stakeholders had risen the issue of facing legal hiccups in proving human trafficking cases as well as repatriating undocumented expatriate workers from the Maldives, at court.

While a confirmed number is yet to be provided by the relevant authorities, it has been deemed that close to 200,000 expatriate workers reside in the Maldives out of which almost 100,000 are undocumented.

At a time expatriate workers are residing illegally in the Maldives, carrying out business transactions illegally and getting involved in criminal offenses, the issue of expatriate workers in the country has become an issue of national concern.

Further, expatriate workers have been creating unrest of recent, with recent confrontations between officers of law enforcement leaving some injured and vehicles of the security forces, dented. A group of over 200 expatriate workers from Bodufinolhu island even took 13 Maldivian hostage, at a time there have been concerns of some local supervisors being extremely negligent towards their wellbeing and due salaries.