Report by Mishal Khan et al. The Rapoport Centre for Human Rights and Justice.
July 2020.
As the global pandemic swept across the Persian Gulf, low-wage migrant workers from Pakistan employed at various construction sites in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were left stranded. International flights came to a halt, and workers who had either completed their contracts, were dismissed from their jobs, forced to take leave, or experienced lapses in their immigration statuses were forced to remain in lockdown. The construction industry in Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) countries employs an estimated 10 million workers, most of them migrant workers from South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Africa.Government statistics report that prior to the pandemic, 1.5 million Pakistanis were employed in the UAE alone. Construction work is one of the main sources of work for migrants in the Gulf, and thus a lifeline for millions of dependent family members who rely on wages earned by these migrant workers.
As the crisis of jobless and locked down workers grew, the UAE government ordered migrant sending countries to take back their nationals. Facing mounting pressure from media and human rights groups documenting the alarming conditions faced by migrant workers in labor camps, the Pakistani government acquiesced. Thus began a panicked rush towards repatriation as over 60,000 Pakistanis registered with the Pakistani consulate demanding to return home, many having to draw on their own funds to purchase their return ticket. The Pakistani government especially arranged repatriation flights to carry fleeing Pakistani expatriates back home. However, reports emerged that between 50-80 percent of workers alighting these packed flights tested positive for COVID-19. The Pakistani-UAE migration corridor thus became a COVID-19 “hotspot.”
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