The concerned Secretary General of the KSHR, Amer Al-Tamimi, stated that his agency helped the protestors write letters to the Ministry of Education and has contacted the Interior Ministry for immediate help in these matters.
Speaking on behalf of the protesting laborers, Muneer Misleh Aldeen, stated, "About 20-25 of us live in one room. We sleep on three or four floors bed [bunk bed], and some even on floor next to each other. Although our contract expired, the company still asks us to work. They are keeping our passports, and our IDs expired. We only demand our financial rights and want to go back to Bangladesh."
Many of these cleaners were lured to Kuwait with promises that they would receive nearly four times their current actual pay by ruthless recruiters and bad company representatives, owned by Kuwaitis.
It is in this context that it has to be pointed out that this current situation, whereby the Kuwait ministries have not renewed visas in a timely fashion and whereby contract rigging is widespread in Kuwait has led many workers in this land to seek employment elsewhere or to flee for their homes.
Let me explain. Therefore, many people who had never had any intention of working in Iraq, sometimes finally agree to do so. Under duress of not receiving the pay or job they were offered prior to coming to Kuwait and after pressure from their Kuwaiti contractors, some of them agree to serve U.S. military personnel as subcontracted laborers in neighboring Iraq. This abuse had gone on for over five years.
Note: In other words, who wouldn't sometimes gamble on working (and surviving) at a Taco Bell situated on a U.S. military facility in Iraq during a war--whereby the pay is 50 to 150 percent better--i.e. rather than to hang around Kuwait looking for pay months-and-months on end as these poor cleaners have had to do?
KUWAITI MAY 2008 ELECTIONS & THE PRESS
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