Underlining the growing problem of illegal expatriates in the Maldives in this week's radio address, President Mohamed Nasheed has vowed to fight human trafficking in the Maldives.
Promising concrete action to address increasing numbers of illegal foreign labour, the President assured the Maldivians and the international community that the government “will not allow the Maldives to be a nest of human trafficking.”
In today's radio address, the President elaborated on the measures decided by the Cabinet on tuesday to address the alarmingly increasing number of illegal expatriate workers. These measures, primarily, involve strengthening and consolidating record keeping of expatriate workers in the Maldives.
Highlighting the decisions by the the Cabinet to, the President acknowledged that “there are many failures in the efforts by government agencies to maintain expatriate records.”
Speaking in this regard, the President revealed the discrepancies between the numbers of expatriate workers reported by the Human Resources, Youth and Sports and the Department of Immigration and Emigration.
He stated that while the Ministry records show there were 74,000 foreign workers, Immigration Department's records show that there were 94,000 expatriate workers in the Maldives.
“And it is estimated that there are over 40,000 illegal expatriate workers in the Maldives,” he added.
The President underscored that the situation of illegal foreign workers reached an alarming level “due to failure to investigate illegal workers, and lack of a systematic approach to [monitor] arrivals, employment and living conditions of expatriates.”
He announced that the government has decided special additional measures to address these inadequacies.
These measures, announced by the President today, include launching a special investigation by the Police of any possible unlawful activity that might have led to increasing the number of illegal workers.
He revealed that the government has begun special operation to upgrade and administer the information technology systems and infrastructure at the Human Resources Ministry and the Immigration Department under the direct supervision of Maldives National Defence Force.
In addition, the President said the government would begin training of immigration officers and formulate immigration officers' code of conduct to fully enforce existing legislations and patch loopholes in these legislations.
In today's radio address, the President said the government would do everything possible to find a solution to growing concern over increasing number of illegal expatriate workers in the Maldives.
He assured that the government “will do everything possible to make the Maldives a country that respects human dignity, ensure all Maldivians respected human rights, pursued a civilized lifestyle.”
