Expatriate “troubles” exacerbated by lack of border policy, says immigration head

Abdulla Shahid, appointed back in February as the nation’s immigration chief, said that a lack of any kind of immigration controls or policy in the Maldives had left valuable foreign workers facing “inhumane” treatment and a host of other problems once inside the country.

Speaking to Minivan News, Shahid said that despite the country’s long history of bringing skilled and unskilled foreign workers to its shores reaching as far back as the 1950’s, both the current and previous government had failed to put any measures in place to outline numbers of foreign workers or their employment conditions.

Both Shahid and the High Commissioner of Bangladesh to the Maldives, Rear Admiral Abu Saeed Mohamed Abdul Awal, have claimed that authorities from both countries were now trying to devise a new legal framework that they claim is needed to protect the rights of foreign workers.