A document tabled in Parliament shows that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has known 2,295 illegal and fake agents as of October 30 this year. Andhra Pradesh ranks first in the list with 471 illegal and fake agencies and Uttar Pradesh ranks second with 400 illegal agents. and fake agencies.
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Sudeesh Kumar, a Keralite who lost his hotel waiter job in Oman during the Covid pandemic, struggled to make a living in his hometown.
He ran a street food outlet, but its failure led him to reconsider emigrating to the Arab Gulf. After several attempts, he found a hotel waiter’s job in a cafeteria in Saudi Arabia in March 2023, secured through a middleman.
The position will offer a monthly salary of ₹22,000. Despite the lack of a formal written offer letter and the agent’s reliance on verbal communication for the main points of the position, the entire maximum recruitment payment of ₹65,000 suited Sudeesh.
“What the officer told me is that the money is needed to process the work visa and buy the ticket to Saudi Arabia. My wife had some gold. I pawned it in a personal financial company and paid the agent.
“Within three weeks, the visa was processed and I flew here. The situations aren’t so fair, but I can’t give up because this painting is mandatory for my family,” Sudeesh told The Leaflet by phone from Saudi Arabia.
Sudeesh Kumar’s fate is far from unique. Indian job seekers hoping for opportunities abroad face the predatory practice of exorbitant hiring fees, even when there are government regulations restricting them.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs makes it clear that registered recruitment agencies can charge a maximum of Rs 30,000 for their services. More than 1,700 such agencies operate across India and are authorized to hire for jobs.
A crucial factor that comes into play regarding these organisations is their concentration in urban areas. This leaves a gap in rural areas, where desperate job seekers often turn to unregistered middlemen, known as ‘invisible sub-agents’.
These intermediaries, who operate without supervision, charge unauthorized fees to would-be immigrants, without offering receipts.
For many would-be immigrants in rural areas such as Sudeesh, the “help” of intermediaries in locating a task is essential, even if it comes at a high price, as it is difficult to contact registered urban recruitment agencies.
Unfortunately, the exorbitant fees charged through sub-agents go unnoticed, they are a form of corruption.
Last Thursday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a warning to all would-be immigrants to fall victim to fake agents providing jobs abroad.
The document reads: “It has been detected that there has been a large increase in the number of job applicants who have been deceived by unregistered recruitment agents using fake job offers and have also been overcharged for the ₹2-5 lakh (US$2,500) song. -6. 000). )”.
The additional document adds that those unregistered or illegal agents work by obtaining a license from the ministry, which is mandatory for any hiring to work abroad.
“It has been reported that many illegal agents operate through Facebook, WhatsApp, text messages and other such mediums. These agencies provide little or no details of their whereabouts and contacts.
“They only talk via WhatsApp, which makes it difficult to locate and identify the caller, as well as the authenticity of the job offer. They also encourage staff to work in harsh and even fatal conditions.
“Cases of such recruitment have been recorded in several Eastern European countries, some Gulf countries, Central Asian countries, Israel, Canada, Myanmar and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic,” the statement added.
A document submitted to Parliament indicates that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had become aware of 2,295 illegal or fake recruitment agencies as of October 30 this year. Andhra Pradesh tops the list with 471 illegal or fake agencies and Uttar Pradesh comes second with 400 illegal or fake agencies.
A parliamentary document filed in February 2023 states that around 1,000 foreign task programs are processed in fourteen offices of the “Ombudsman for Migrants” in India.
Simple calculations reveal that 1,000 applicants paying $361 generate $361,000 per day for recruitment agencies in India. This equates to $10 million per month and $129 million per year.
However, when the external affairs ministry itself says that illegal or fake agencies are charging every potential migrant US $2,500 to US $6,000, the calculations bring out mindboggling figures.
Even if we were to assume that each of the 2,925 illegal or fake agencies recruited only five immigrants in a month charging $2,500 each, the amount translates to $36. 5 million per month.
For a year, the figure will be US $438 million. With this money, the illegal or fake recruiters can fuel five Chandrayaan-3 missions, as one costs only US $75 million, or they can buy three Dassault Rafale jet units, which cost US $115 million apiece, with some change to spare.
Rafeek Ravuther, an immigrant rights activist, told The Leaflet that “recruitment is the first immigration process. When illegal or fraudulent agents are involved, corruption occurs when they charge exorbitant fees to the migrant.
“Eventually, this exorbitant recruitment fee pushes the migrant worker into debt bondage back home and forced labour at the workplace. Many migrants have to work one or two years to clear the debt bondage and when the debt exists, the migrant worker will adjust to any exploitative working conditions,” Rafeek added.
The Foreign Affairs opinion states that resorting to any other recruitment channel entails a serious risk of being a victim of monetary fraud, of not getting the promised task and of living in difficult situations.
“All unregistered agencies are being warned not to be involved in overseas recruitment activities. Such activities are in violation of the Emigration Act, 1983 and amount to human trafficking, which is a punishable criminal offence,” the advisory adds.
Rejimon Kuttapan is a freelance journalist and researcher on migrant rights.
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