As Covid-19 continues to spread many conscious countries, have steadily augmented curbs, such as imposing a nationwide curfew, putting countries in lockdown, and suspending passenger flights.
These precautionary measures have impacted every stratum of individual, but crowded into work camps, laid off from their offices, facing the dearth of personal protective equipment and no way to return home, thousands of migrant workers are facing the brunt of Covid-19 in different parts of the world.
Governments, as well as employers, seem to be helpless. While authorities are doing their best to control the situation of these workers, employers are facing their own set of challenges, with revenues having taken a deep plunge because of the economic shutdown world-over.
Hence the vicious cycle of Covid-19 is becoming more and more challenging, impacting both financially and emotionally on all concerned.
Apprehension is focused on the wealthy Gulf states, where migrant workers, predominantly from South East Asia (which includes Pakistan) make up more than half of the population who have been employed from different regions. Workers who were assigned to construction sites have now been confined to dormitories far away from the sites they were working on and stripped of their incomes. The same is the story with energy and retail sectors, staffed by foreign labor mostly.
According to some recent statistics given an by industry expert, 2,400,000– 2,500,000 Pakistani workers are in Saudi Arabia and around 400,000 – 500,000 are their dependent family members. In UAE around 1,100,000 are working whereas altogether in GCC countries 4,500,000 – 5,000,000 Pakistani employees are stuck.
Roughly more than 20,000 Pakistanis abroad have registered a request since 3rd April 2020 to the Consulate to return home. Regional construction companies/investors who have invested in the Gulf States and sent workforce overseas, have also clearly taken a major hit. Such entities help create employment opportunities for skilled and unskilled Pakistani workforce and thus add to the prosperity of Pakistan.
The negative impact on their revenues under these circumstances, is posing immense pressure on these entities to bring back their workers at the earliest.
However, their hands are tied due to the prevailing air travel issues. In parallel, many of them can be seen continuing the boarding/lodging arrangements of these workers, adhering to basic safety precautions (ensuring social distancing, providing masks and gloves and strictly monitoring safety and health matters), while at the same time paying double the airfare for their early return.
Nationwide lockdowns, closed borders, and cancelled flights have posed an additional challenge for the Pakistani Government to bring back its citizens while dealing with the pandemic due to limited quarantine space. This prevents the authorities from allowing a surge of these workers to return home.
These unprecedented times have created a vicious circle, the pressure of which is being felt at every level.
Every country has been affected by Covid-19 in different ways as the graph of affectees rises towards an upward curve. To cope with the pandemic, support and patience are required for everyone being affected so that together we can overcome the issue.
