H R Violation of Migrant Workers during Pandemic

The UN Migration Agency (IOM) defines a migrant as any person who is moving or has moved across an international border or within a state away from his /her habitual place of residence, regardless of the persons legal status, whether the movement was voluntary or involuntary, what the causes for the movement are or what the length of stay is. It differentiates economic migrants from labour migrants, economic migrants are the ones including business travellers, contract migrant workers and investors. They enter a state to perform economic activities such as investors or business travelers but can be brought narrowly under the labour migrants. Migrant movement has been seen in all different cultures for the economic and financial purpose and from the globalisation era it has gained immense popularity. There are millions of migrants who travel from developing countries to developed countries and also within the countries for a better quality of life. These migrant workers are mainly illiterate, ignorant and belong to backward communities. The reasons for their shift can be poverty, lack of opportunity, better wages that is from poorer developing areas to richer areas where wages are higher and more jobs are available, urbanization, and want for a good standard of living. There are various rights available to everyone for the status of being the superior beings that is human beings and migrants also have those rights. But the world has been a little lenient towards their rights and it has become a grave concern for the international community working for the protection of human rights. The most vulnerable of these migrants are the migrant workers due to the lack of social Security. The Migrant specific instruments by ILO ratified by India are as Forced Labour Convention, Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, Equal Remuneration Convention ,Discrimination (Employment Occupation) Convention, Minimum Age Convention, Worst forms of Child Labour Convention, India has not ratified the two core fundamental conventions i.e. Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize Convention, 1948 and Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining Convention The main reason for non-ratification of above ILO conventions is due to certain restrictions imposed on the government servants. The ratification of these conventions would mean the granting of certain rights that are prohibited under the statutory rules, for the government employees that is the right to strike, to openly criticize government policies, to freely accept a financial contribution, to freely join foreign organizations etc. Indian Constitution provides various rights in the preamble providing social justice in the state; Fundamental Rights are 14-32 and Directive Principles part 4 of the Constitution concern Labour Rights. Some of the Specific legislations are Inter State migrant workmen (regulation of employment and condition of service) Act 1974, it talks about the registration, licensing, duties and obligations of employers. Payment of wages act 1936 – there should be no exploitation of workers by untimely payment of wages and no arbitrary fines should be imposed. Employees’ compensation Act 1923 increase in use of machinery and need of man power to go down. Equal remuneration act 1976 and it will override all other agreements. Minimum wages act 1948 illiteracy and inability to 2 bargains should not become a base for exploitation. Maternity benefits act 1961 for both pre and post maternity benefits to women. Unorganized workers social Security act 2008. As per Michelle Bachelet High Commissioner for Human Rights United Nations: Covid 19 exposed the dramatic effect of decades of underfunding in health, water, sanitation, housing social protection and also policies assured labour and its decent work. The impact of covid 19 upon the vulnerabilities of migrant workers is well documented. Covid 19 outbreak has thrown most countries into a humanitarian crisis that humanity has not faced in modern times. The world is uncertain about how long this crisis will last and what damage it would do to the economy, livelihood of citizens, and the availability of basic healthcare to those who need it the most. Unfortunately, with ever changing virus transmission dynamics, it hit the most vulnerable groups of population killing thousands of people who remain virgin ground for the virus. Covid 19 should not be used as an excuse for human rights violations. Although Public Health protocols have called for emergency measures that limit freedom mobility and public assembly. But in the case of migrant workers, the Government has pushed the limit of all these Health regulations. India’s nationwide lockdown amidst the covid 19 pandemic has critically dislocated its migrant population; they did not have any jobs and money and were forced to walk hundreds of miles back to their home villages. In response to the covid-19 outbreak, Indian Government and many others imposed the nationwide lockdown. India adopted it on 24th March 2020, a 21 days lockdown was imposed at first in order to the spread of covid-19 in a densely populated nation of 1.3 billion people. First covid-19 virus case was detected on 30th Jan 2020 in India.The lockdown strategy adopted by the Government of India was a complete failure because it was done without preparation and strangled people were not given time to return to their homes. After this announcement everything in the country came to a standstill and those people who had left their states and went to the other places for either work or studies had no option rather than to go back to their native places and thus India witnessed a mass exodus of people from migrant workers going back to their village and people working /studying in various cities. This sudden lockdown had an adverse effect on business and affected the lives of millions migrant labourers. Lack of food and basic necessities, loss of environment, lack of social support became the major struggles for such a huge population. They were all strangled because they reside in rented rooms which they had to leave because they lost their work and the transport system was also suspended and even when they wanted to go back to their states, they had no source to leave. Letting jobs and money, and public transportation shut down thousands of migrants were forced to walk hundreds of miles back to their home with some dying during the journey. Although countries Rapid Response slowed down the speed of the disease but also raised concerns about the exacerbating existing inequalities and vulnerabilities. This lockdown resulted in major human rights violation to these migrants, more than 300 deaths were reported till 5th May 2020 with ranging from Suicide , starvation, exhaustion common accidents, police brutality and non-availability of timely medical care.
Most of such deaths were of those who belong to the marginalized sections of the society. 80 of them died while travelling back on the special buses. 8 May 2020, 16 migrants were killed by a freight train because they had stopped the rest near Aurangabad in Maharashtra. They were forced to travel in overloaded trucks resulting in the death of 8 migrants and injury of 55 migrants when one of the trucks collided with a bus in Madhya Pradesh. Another such incident happened on 16th may when 24 workers were killed and many 3 of them were injured in Uttar Pradesh. The image of the endless inhumane sufferings and the brutalities to the migrants coming from the country clearly depicted the hollowness of the governance of government, the government has failed miserably, even when it talks of being a welfare state, it could not provide the basic minimum necessities required to live a healthy and dignified life by any person which is the basic agenda of all human rights and the so called enforceable fundamental rights provided by the Constitution of India. The workers class who always serve the country with their blood and sweat and are the backbone of the development of any country were left strangled on the roads when it came to the protection of the health of the people of country of course both are equally important but they failed in thinking about the poor workers , if lockdown was to be imposed then they should have first made arrangement for these people as well because india is a developing country with so much poverty and expecting these people to survive for 21 days without any aid from government clearly depicts the irresponsibility of the government towards these workers. Government could easily afford the death and being left homeless the workers and not to cause any inconvenience to the elite class of the society. Those who work for the country and make the city a dream were left with no work, no food, no shelter and the worst part of it was the lack of transportation to take them back to their native states. The approach of government rather than being democratic and based on welfare approach proved itself to be capitalistic where all the rights were snatched from these poor workers and providing an open platform of their exploitation to the heartless capitalist. The migrant workers are mostly daily wagers and to arrange a meal for themselves and their dependents become a challenge for them. A survey by Jan sahas (2020) of 3000 migrants from North Central India The majority of migrant workers are daily wagers and 42% were left with no ration .These migrants were treated as untouchables by the people for being victims of covid even when it was not confirmed whether or not they were infected.
To be continued… (The author is research scholar at Central University of Kashmir. Views expressed are exclusively her own)
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