With nearly all of the 10 million Indians who live in the Gulf sticking it out during the conflict with Iran, efforts by New Delhi to overhaul the rights of its workers abroad are falling short of what is needed, according to the Indian news outlet Scroll.
Overseas work is crucial to the Indian economy — a source of tens of billions of dollars in remittances annually and a release valve for a struggling domestic jobs market. The majority of Indians in the Gulf are low-income, blue-collar workers, and many suffer from abuses, including wage theft, extortionate recruitment fees, and dangerous workplace conditions.
Rules governing Indians’ work abroad have not been updated in decades, but a draft bill was introduced to the Indian parliament last year to address exploitation overseas. Under the proposed law, a new body called the Overseas Mobility and Welfare Council will look after emigrants’ welfare, but Scroll argued that it lacks teeth to provide oversight on the recruitment offices that source workers and send them abroad.