ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - With millions of foreigners traveling into Iraq for pilgrimage at Shiite holy sites in Karbala and Najaf during Arbaeen this month, the head of the Iraqi workers’ syndicate has highlighted issues with foreign labor, undocumented workers, and the necessity of its investigatory body.
“A committee… has been established to eliminate [the presence and arrival of] unauthorized foreign workers,” Waleed Nimat, head of the Iraqi workers’ syndicate, told Rudaw on Sunday.
He said there are more than 2.5 million foreign workers in Iraq, and of those, 70 percent lack proper work permits. Nimat said the presence of the foreign workers has contributed to a lack of jobs for Iraqis.
According to Nimat, many foreigners enter Iraq under the guise of religious pilgrimage to travel to Shiite cities in the south or to visit the Kurdistan Region for tourism.
Millions of Shiite followers from around the world, annually embark upon a journey to Karbala, to attend the Arbaeen pilgrimage. Many of the religious tourists also visit sites in nearby Najaf.
While most of the visitors return home, some remain in Iraq, enticed by better employment opportunities. To legally remain in Iraq, foreigners are required to register with officials and obtain a residency permit, typically sponsored by the employer or employment agencies.
Such bureaucratic hurdles can be difficult to navigate in Iraq for foreigners, especially those who do not speak the local languages, and are unfamiliar with local legal processes and customs.
Without providing full statistics, Nimat said most of Iraq’s foreign workers come from Pakistan and Bangladesh, adding that 15,000 foreign workers have been deported so far in 2024.
In July, millions of foreigners came to Iraq for the 10th day of Muharram - the first month of the Hijri calendar - on pilgrimage to Najaf and Karbala’s Shiite holy sites. Media outlets widely reported that Pakistan's Religious Affairs Minister Chaudhry Salik Hussain had said on social media that some 50,000 of his compatriots are missing in Iraq - leading to speculation and confusion. Iraq’s foreign ministry said in a statement that the Pakistani diplomat had refuted the reports and described the reported information as not correct.
While many foreigners legally enter and remain in Iraq, others are taken advantage of or misled by employment agencies and companies, in particular domestic workers, manual, and low-skilled laborers.
Human rights violations of foreign workers have been widely documented by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and in the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report.
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