As IOM provides humanitarian assistance to a group of 35 Ukrainian
and Bulgarian workers left in desperate straits by their employer
in Iraq, the Organization appeals to private companies to honour
their obligations to take care of their workers and follow national
immigration, labour and human rights norms.

The call comes as IOM staff carry out several visits a day to a
construction site where the migrants are living in crowded, dark,
dirty and unventilated conditions, bringing food, water and medical
assistance.

The Ukrainians and Bulgarians being assisted by IOM are part of
an original group of 217 migrants, including Nepalese, recruited to
work on a construction project inside the international zone in
Baghdad in December 2010.

The men, who had been promised salaries of USD 2,500 when hired,
have so far only received a few hundred dollars despite having
worked very long hours for months. When a sub-contractor absconded,
work on the construction site stopped, leaving the migrants without
money or clean water and little access to food.

With their employer also having failed to get them the necessary
residency permits as promised, the migrants automatically became
undocumented workers.

Some of the 217 migrants have been moved to work on another site
while others have succumbed to pressure by the employer and agreed
to leave the country for a one-time payment of USD 1,000. However,
after being forced to pay their transport home and charges for
overstaying a 10-day visa, the migrants were left with little
money.

The 35 migrants still at the site are living in unsanitary
conditions and without electricity. Some of the migrants have
health problems related to poor food intake and drinking unsafe
water. Having borrowed money to pay recruitment agents to get the
job in Iraq in the first place, the migrants are in debt which they
are unlikely to pay off unless they are paid their salaries.

"As an immediate step, their salaries need to be paid, for the
employer to stop threatening them to leave the country without due
remuneration and for the migrants to eventually be assisted home in
a safe and dignified way," says Livia Styp-Rekowska, from IOM
Baghdad. "In this particular case we are fortunate that the
migrants are in the International Zone and we have direct access to
them. This is not true of the vast majority of the migrant
exploitation cases we know about."

IOM is liaising with government counterparts and
parliamentarians on this case, who have been supportive of the need
to pay the workers their salaries and protect them against
arbitrary removal from the country.

However, the case highlights yet again the need for more
long-term responses to foreign labour exploitation in Iraq as
contractors, many of them foreign, take advantage of reconstruction
efforts.

While many are aware of the problem of internal displacement in
Iraq, the same cannot be said of human trafficking for labour or
for migrant exploitation.

Over the years, IOM has assisted many labour migrants who were
exploited in Iraq to work in the construction, domestic and service
industries, each with horrific stories to tell.

"This is a very serious problem in the country. Many if not most
of the foreign workers in Iraq are undocumented through no fault of
their own, leaving them in an extremely vulnerable position,"
Styp-Rekowska adds. "We are talking of many tens of thousands of
foreign workers. What is needed to stop this kind of exploitation
is a comprehensive labour migration policy in Iraq and for the new
counter-trafficking law to be passed by parliament combined with an
effective system that protects trafficked or stranded
migrants."

For further information, please contact:

Antonio Salanga

IOM Baghdad

Tel: +964-781-576-0061 or + 962-799-055-629

E-mail: "mailto:asalanga@iom.int">asalanga@iom.int