Labourers living in pathetic state want to return home

Manama : A group of disgruntled workers living in a labour camp in Sitra are yearning to go back to their home country to escape from the miserable life at the camp. 

The Indian workers claim that they are forced to live in unhygienic conditions; their residence has only one bathroom although 67 people live there. The bedrooms and kitchen are also in a cruddy state. 

Some of the workers claim that they were cheated by a recruiting agency in India, promising a “decent salary and a nice job.” They said they were suffering every day because of long working hours and the sordid conditions they live in.

“We were promised a salary of BD200, but now we are lucky if we get BD100 a month, sometimes we get only BD20,” said Riyas, one of the workers. “We were told that there would be a nice place to stay and a job that is comfortable. We had no idea what a horrible trap we were getting into. As soon as we landed at the Bahrain airport, our passports were confiscated. To make matters worse, they produced some fraudulent papers to show that we owed them BD1,000. So we are trapped because of that.”

“They force us to work day and night, they do not even pay us on time. Many of us did not get salaries for two or three months. Once they even came to physically assault me. They said that if I want to leave I should pay them BD1,000,” he added.