Indian migrant workers from Kerala face chronic rights abuses abroad", UCA News, 4 July 2014

Migrants from Indian's southern Kerala state working in Saudi Arabia are “vulnerable to serious human rights violations”, according to a new report released on Friday by the rights group Amnesty International India...“Indian migrant workers’ miseries start from the day of the recruitment to Saudi Arabia, as many of them pay more than 200,000 Indian rupees (US$3,400) to get a free job visa which does not guarantee a regular employment. But the Indian government does nothing to protect the rights of the migrant workers from human rights abuses including forced labor and human trafficking,” the report said, referring to corruption in the granting of work visas. G Ananthapadmanabhan, chief executive of Amnesty International India, said Indian workers from Kerala in Saudi Arabia, which number more than half a million, were often at the mercy of their employers. “Many workers complained that they were forced to work 15 to 18 hours a day without a day off. The majority of them do not get their salaries, and some of them were not paid for several months by their employers in Saudi Arabia...It is time that migrant workers’ rights get the protection they deserve...A spokesperson at the Ministry of External Affairs acknowledged on Friday “there are certain issues relating to labor contracts in Gulf countries” but added that the Indian government “was committed to protecting the interests of the workers there”.