Patralekha Chatterjee | Keep migrants safe as they seek jobs in conflict zones

Wars do not faze the poor. In every country, the desperate vote with their feet. So, it comes as no surprise that thousands of Indian workers are now queuing up for jobs in Israel, even as the war's devastation rages on, and there are serious concerns over ethics and safety.

This rush for construction jobs in war-torn Israel from a country where Italian luxury carmaker Lamborghini met its 2023 target in just one month is an Indian paradox, a telling marker of the grim employment prospects facing millions.

“If it is in our destiny to die, then we can die either here or there…" said Lekharam, a mason. He was among the many who gathered at a recent recruitment camp in Rohtak, Haryana, hoping to be selected for a job in Israel.

We have been down this road before.

Indians have risked life and limb for a better deal for themselves and their families. In March 2018, for example, the Iraqi authorities found a mass grave with the bodies of 38 Indian construction workers who had been kidnapped when Islamic State (ISIS) militants overran Mosul in northern Iraq in 2014.

Successive governments have evacuated Indian citizens stranded in war-torn areas, including from Israel last year. The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 in southern Israel killed Israelis as well as several migrant workers. Some migrant workers were among the hostages.

Since then, Israel’s fierce air, sea and ground offensive in Gaza has killed over 26,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 65,000. Deaths and devastation continue, even after a damning ruling by the International Court of Justice, further polarising a terrifyingly fractured world.

Indians lining up for work in Israel in 2024 remain undeterred.

Last May, Israel and India officially signed an agreement that allows 42,000 Indians to work in Israel in construction and nursing. Over 3,000 people have already been selected from Uttar Pradesh for jobs in Israel’s construction sector. Workers in Haryana are also gearing up for work in Israel. Five more states are reportedly keen to leverage war-torn Israel’s labour crunch.

Clearly, the main attraction is the money. The promised monthly salary in Israel (more than Rs 1 lakh, plus medical insurance) is many times the amount that construction workers can ever hope to earn in India.

However, there are legitimate concerns about the safety and security of migrant workers in a conflict zone.

Most Indian migrant workers who go to conflict-prone regions or places without sufficient labour protections need to register with India’s e-migrate portal run by the external affairs ministry. This is for their safety and security. Israel is not currently part of this system, point out trade unions and labour rights advocates who have serious reservations about the officially facilitated plan to send Indian workers to Israel.

“While previous government-to-government agreements facilitating the movement of Indian workers to Israel have been commended, the current proposal's timing given the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict raises many concerns,” noted a policy brief by the Britain-based Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB).

“The implicit indication that Israel may be considering the replacement of Palestinian workers with Indian labour is particularly troubling,” it added.

The IHRB raises some key questions: is it ethically acceptable to authorise the recruitment of Indian workers currently? How do the Israeli and Indian governments intend to ensure their safety and well-being? How can they ensure that the workers will not be involved in the building of military barracks or internment camps for prisoners?

Another critical question: how aware are the Israel-bound migrant workers about the extent of the risk they are taking, and what can be done to ensure awareness?

Government agencies must ensure that migrant workers are fully aware of the fine print in their contract. This encompasses not only wages and the modality of their disbursement but also specifics about rest, which include overtime, vacation, medical leave, living conditions and safety.

Government agencies and labourers from India signing up for work in war-torn Israel must pay attention to ongoing conversations about pitfalls and discrepancies between expectations and reality in countries that have already sent workers to Israel, like Sri Lanka, Malawi, Kenya, Moldova, Thailand, and China. They also need to pay attention to what Israeli civil society is saying.

In Malawi, for example, the local media has spotlighted complaints that agents have grabbed a large chunk of workers’ money. “We do not agree with this arrangement because we are the ones working here, not the agents. We want our money to be sent directly to our accounts,” according to Malawi24, a news portal.

Recently, the local media in Moldova reported that the Moldova-Israel agreement for recruitment of construction workers has been temporarily postponed. The specific reason for the postponement remains undisclosed.

While government to government labour mobility pacts offer stronger protection to migrant workers, the key issue is implementation.

Bilateral agreements between governments on labour mobility have partly improved the situation. Recruitment fees have dipped significantly, notes a 2019 report “The Effectiveness of the Bilateral Agreements”, brought out by the Centre for International Migration and Integration, Israel.

However, implementation has been patchy across sectors.

“In the care-giving sector, there was an improvement in the wages after the implementation of the pilot agreement. However, part of this may be explained by the increase in overall minimum wage in Israel, and not by the agreement alone. It is important to note that there was no significant improvement in most of the other employment conditions of the migrant workers in caregiving. In the construction sector, there was a deterioration in employment conditions, especially in safety at work… also in the wages of the workers from China, even though the wages were still in compliance with the requirements of the collective agreements in the sector. In the agriculture sector, it is hard to identify a clear trend: some of the employment conditions improved, while others deteriorated and some remained unchanged,” says the report.

“The safety requirements for the construction workers in Israel, including the migrant workers in this sector, need to significantly improve,” it adds.

Bilateral agreements mandate that employers in Israel provide every migrant worker with an employment contract in a language the migrant understands, as well as health insurance and adequate housing. They also mandate pre-departure orientation, booklets about workers’ rights, helplines for workers’ questions in their mother tongue so that migrant workers know their entitlements in Israel.

These must be followed.

Protection mechanisms for migrant workers are paramount. While balancing risks with remittances, their welfare and safety must remain supreme.