Behind the Scenes of "Exploitation Across Borders" Indian migrant workers fight for their right to get paid in Serbia."
During the Covid crisis in India, a haunting image that caught media attention was that of Indian workers migrating on foot from big cities to their villages, walking for hundreds of miles with their families and belongings, risking their lives, having already lost their livelihoods. The search of workers for employment takes them not just to big cities but also across their national borders. Even before the pandemic hit, the unemployment rate was at a four-decade high in India.
Added to this is the lack of protection for workers’ rights in the unorganised sector. All this put together pushes many in the Indian workforce to foreign lands, where they become easy targets for exploitation. We found a glaring example of this violation of rights in our latest story by Yamuna Matheswaran, on Indian workers employed in the construction sector in Serbia.
When someone is already in a vulnerable position, it is tough to first understand and then challenge legalities. It is even harder when you are employed in one country but the company that hired you is registered in another country, as happens in this story.
Whose laws apply? Which court can you appeal to? What is the responsibility of your own government towards you?
Not withstanding these roadblocks, the workers this report talks about fought for justice through complaints and strikes. Their struggle also helped in their repatriation to home countries, though they are still demanding outstanding payments.
Violation of workers’ rights – including poor and hazardous working/living conditions and meager payments – is not limited to Indian workers. In Serbia itself there were reports of Chinese and Turkish workers’ being ill treated. Globally 24.9 million people are in forced labour, of which 16 million are in the private sector, including construction. As we see the crisis unfolding in Afghanistan, an even higher number of people rendered homeless and finding themselves as forced migrants would be vulnerable to exploitation and modern slavery.
Please consider a donation to support the work of our all-women newsroom. We create a space for journalists facing structural barriers, working towards a more equitable, inclusive world of journalism. Join our mission today!
College-educated migrants arriving in Italy face one of the harshest job markets in Europe. Compared to natives with similar qualifications, migrants are overqualified, underpaid, and underemployed. As a doctor from Venezuela learned, landing steady employment even in a field with shortages can be a long struggle.
High language requirements, a one-size integration policy, and discrimination. Despite the need for labour, landing a job in Sweden has become a hurdle race for college-educated migrants, a new joint investigation with Lighthouse Reports shows.
What tactics and strategies work to defend democracy from elite capture? How do people build movements to protect institutions, the environment, and each other from authoritarianism? What are the strategic, cultural, emotional resources possessed by the majority that can counter the way of authoritarianism?
Despite legal prohibitions, several African countries continue to suffer high rates of child marriage. Now, tribal leaders are teaming up with civil society, taking as many routes as necessary to find solutions.
From 2013 to the present, Refaat has searched everywhere for their children. For ten years he has been traveling, asking, and searching. He has even appeared on TV hoping one day to be reunited with them. But to this day he still does not know if his children were saved or if they are two of the 268 victims of the October 11, 2013 shipwreck, one of the worst Mediterranean disasters in the last three decades.
Do you share our mission? Sign up for our newsletter so we can keep in touch!
