By Soman Baby

INDIAN EMBASSY officials are filing more than 120 complaints a month against rogue employers in Bahrain.

The figure was revealed by Indian Ambassador Balkrishna Shetty, as he vowed that the embassy would continue blacklisting companies which exploit Indian workers by defying Bahrain’s labour law.

There are currently 43 Bahraini companies on the embassy’s blacklist, said Mr Shetty.

These companies will not be allowed to recruit workers from India until they rectify the situation, he told the GDN.

“The complaints against these companies include non-payment of wages, maltreatment of workers, unauthorised reduction from salaries and not releasing the workers’ passports,” said Mr Shetty.

“Some of these companies have brought workers to Bahrain on visit visas and were asking for money to change them to work visas.”

Some companies are still keeping hold of workers’ passports, despite several warnings by the government, he said.

“They refused to release the passports to their owners, even after the embassy intervened,” said Mr Shetty.

“This is a clear violation of human rights. Such companies are in fact involved in human trafficking.

“We have brought the cases of these companies to the attention of the Labour Ministry and various other ministries.”

Mr Shetty said many companies were cleared from the blacklist after they conceded to the embassy’s demands.

“We give an opportunity to the companies to correct their mistakes and once they agree to our genuine demands, they are taken off the blacklist. During the blacklist period, they will not be able to recruit workers from India and their representatives will not be granted visas by the embassy to visit India. The list of such companies is also being sent to the Indian government.”

Mr Shetty said that though the Labour Ministry’s orders to companies to pay their workers’ wages through banks came into force in July 2006, there were many companies which had not yet complied.

“We have received complaints from Indian workers about such companies. We shall prepare a detailed report on such companies and present it to the Labour Ministry, he added.”