Woman appeals to MEA to bring back her brother from Libya

By G Saravanan

Published in The New Indian Express, Chennai, on September 4, 2010:

CHENNAI: It is yet another tale of trauma at workplace abroad. This time the location is Libya. Kalappan Munuswamy (40), along with 60 others from Tamil Nadu went to the Shamno construction site near Sabha city in Libya with hopes of a good earning.

Now, he desperately wants to return home. Of course, the `90,000 paid to an agent who arranged for his transit is not a bother to him. Reason: ill-treatment at workplace.

Munuswamy is now seriously engrossed in exploring every single avenue to escape from the ‘torture camp’. In India, his elder sister Andal is trying her best to ensure his safety. A Tondiarpet resident, she has taken up the case with the Chennai office of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Friday narrating the abuse meted out to his brother. Her plea: “Rescue my brother alive.”

Andal told Express that she managed to speak to Munuswamy over phone after a long time on Thursday evening. At that time, he told her about the slave-like treatment at workplace. Andal said the workers had only salty water to drink and poor quality food to eat.

She alleged that Munuswamy, who was promised a salary of around `Rs 15,000 per month, had not been paid ever since he joined work in December 2009.

Ever since two Indian and two Bangladeshis manhandled a Libyan engineer after an argument over non-payment of salaries and heavy workload, the local police had been tormenting all the workers, including Munuswamy.

The workers from Tamil Nadu, now trapped in the construction sites in Mottai Brak and Shamno, are mainly from Nagapattinam, Cuddalore, Ramanathapuram and Sivaganga districts.

Like Andal, around 10 relatives of workers have already sought MEA’s intervention. Kannan from Sivaganga district, who returned last month from the Shamno camp, told Express that the work and living conditions at the sites were horrible. “I was selected as a steel-fitter and promised a salary of more than `15,000. But, I was paid only `7,000 in the first month and then they stopped paying at all,” he said.

Kannan said an engineer in the same work site was not allowed to leave even when he received a message from home saying that his wife was in hospital in a serious condition. By the time he was relieved of his duties after his family send him money, his wife had died.

However, the Chennai-based manpower agent, who sent 38 workers, said the Libyan employers normally held back three months’ salary fearing that the workers might leave abruptly. In this case also, only three months’ salary had been withheld.

Though the agent claimed that he had records to prove that the workers had been paid regularly, he said he could produce them only by Tuesday.

On the alleged ill-treatment of labourers, the agent said: “A few workers have ganged up to create problems to the employers. But they are not facing any other problem at the workplace.”