Australia Asia Worker Links

Pasupathi Mariappan, became the twenty-sixth Indian expat to commit suicide in Bahrain this year.  More than 100 Indian laborers are trapped in Bahrain over a wage dispute with Nass Corporation. A court ordered the workers to pay a fine ranging for allegedly causing financial loss to Nass. Disgruntled and broke, many workers left the company long before they realized they were impeded by a travel ban. They found they were stuck in Bahrain when they attempted to leave during an amnesty for illegal workers.

In recent years, travel bans on foreign workers in Bahrain have become an increasingly common feature of exploitation under the shield of Bahrain's Kalafa system, a scheme that encourages slave trade. Often companies pay their employees pittance or take a massive cut from their wages for sponsoring their work visas. When workers attempt to leave or find new jobs, these companies approach the courts with claims of contract violations - a move that wins them the right to forbid workers from leaving.

Unable to work or leave, some workers have been languishing in pain, poverty and debt. Killing themselves is the only option when they find they have no money to support their families in India and no hope of escape.