A cross-regional report on migrant worker deaths in the Gulf draws attention to not only their hazardous working and living conditions, but also to the states’ complicity in increasing mortality rates, as little or no concrete action has been taken to prevent deaths and debilitating illnesses. The report – part of the Vital Signs Project – - Opens in new tab is the result of a partnership between organisations based in five origin states (India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Philippines) and led by FairSquare projects.
Data on mortality and health is sparse across the six GCC states – Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain, but Vital Signs manages to compile critical data through government mechanisms in origin countries. Its first report concludes that annually there are as many as 10,000 deaths of migrant workers from these five Asian countries alone.
As the report explains:
The data that is available on the deaths of migrant workers in the Gulf is incomplete, in places contradictory, and it precludes effective analysis of the extent and gravity of the problem. These problems are compounded by a general lack of transparency. However, despite the shortcomings of the data, it appears that as many as 10,000 migrant workers from south and southeast Asia die in the Gulf every year (this figure will obviously be higher when migrant workers of other nationalities are included) and that more than 1 out of every 2 deaths is effectively unexplained, which is to say that deaths are certified without any reference to an underlying cause of death, instead using terms such as “natural causes” or “cardiac arrest”.
The data provided by origin countries is still incomplete, and the report stresses that it is the responsibility of authorities in destination countries to provide detailed information on deaths to authorities at origin. Moreover, according to the report, the data that is shared by the GCC states is “unreliable in relation to its specification of the causes of migrant worker deaths” and that there were “material inconsistencies between the data on causes of migrant worker deaths made available by origin states and that made available by the Gulf states…”
The lack of post-mortem investigations is the primary reason for the lack of reliable data.
“[T]here is rarely any effort to determine if a fatality was related to occupational accidents or diseases and therefore the families of workers who have died cannot claim any compensation from employers or from the Gulf states. Instead, the burden to compensate workers’ families is shifted to the origin states or onto workers themselves via insurance schemes.”
Nicholas McGeehan, the founding director of Fairsquare, says the project is an attempt to generate concerted action from origin governments to ensure that migrant workers are better protected from risks to their health. Speaking MRRORS, he said the aim was to generate information on topics that are under-researched, increase the pressure on states to publish data more transparently and persuade governments in both origin countries and the Gulf to take measures to prevent needless deaths and to reduce or limit the impact of injuries and diseases.
