Report: Jaxu
Controller of Immigration and Emigration Ibrahim Shafiu has said that it is important to have an immigration detention center in Maldives.He made the comment to Velidhoo News, when asked about the steps taken by immigration regarding the many missing notices of expatriate workers posted in the daily newspapers of the country.
Shafiu said that Immigration is in a better position to handle issues of expatriate workers than Employment Ministry. He said a detention center would prove useful, in finding the missing workers and providing a solution to their problems instead of sending them back to their country.
Controller of Immigration said that to establish such a detention center under the Immigration Department is important and that costing to establish such a center has already been sent to the President’s Office nearly three weeks ago.
Providing further information on the detention center Shafiu said “the main reason why such a detention center needs to be set up is the increasing relationship between the foreign workers and the country’s economy, the act of finding the missing persons and deporting them back to their countries does not solve the issue, most of the expatriate workers are from neighboring countries, deporting them back to their countries can be a problem too”.
“Issue of them missing from work is big problem, there are many who bring ten expatriate workers and report them missing; they then want to get quota for another ten, if we have a detention center we can limit the number of foreign workers being brought to the country, my thinking is to find these reported missing workers and provide them with necessary information on the country’s rules and regulations, and if they wish to continue working in the country to hand them back to the party who brought them, if there is absolutely no other way then we can always send them back” Shafiu told Velidhoo New. “This is why we need a detention center” Shafiu explained.
Asked why he wanted the detention center to be under Immigration Department Shafiu said that he believes most of the issues related to foreign workers arise due to fact that they are looked after by the Ministry. He noted that the Ministry works only during official working hours and have limited staff. He noted that as Immigration department is open twenty four hours and as the expatriate workers get in to Maldives through Immigration, worker related issues can be best handled by them.
Shafiu revealed that in his letter to the President’s Office he has asked for land from Hulhumale’ for the construction of the detention center. He added that the detention center would be staffed by Immigration.
“We cannot send the workers who are hiding to jail as they will be mistreated by the inmates and they cannot be send to jail as they have not committed a crime, the only choice open is to deport them, one must consider the reason for their behavior, what forced them to go into hiding, if we just send them back it would be injustice to them as well as aloss for us” Shafiu noted.
Shafiu further noted that the country’s dependence on imported labor.
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