Category: Guest Contributors

What we talk about when we talk about Independence

 

by Shahindha Ismail

This July marks 50 years of independence for Maldives. It is truly fitting, in this sense, to light up the nation and celebrate the occasion with music, fireworks and fanfare. The government has spent millions to make it the most colourful and celebrated event in our small country.

Then why does it seem that all this is being rained upon? In sentiment as well as, alas, by Mother Nature? There has been so much resistance towards preparations for celebrations in the run up to the Independence Day. Is it not worthy of our leaders to stop and think for a moment? For our people are a freedom loving lot, a people who will sacrifice life and livelihood for it and, therefore, will undeniably celebrate it with fest and fervour.

However, contradictory sentiments have been expressed in abundance. Those of us who speak out have stood at public podiums and joined rallies. They have objected to this celebration of independence on TV, radio and print media. Others, especially the youth, have made their views crystal clear on social media. Parents have refused to let their children participate in school performances for the big event. The lights that have been spread across the city do not reach the homes of the people.

Why do we not rejoice in our fiftieth year of independence? Why is the air thick with negativity?

True, the Maldives was a British Protectorate for decades before they let us have our independence. Independence, as defined in the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, freedom from political control by other countries. Yes we have achieved it. Or, even if we fought no battles for it, we have it nevertheless.

What, then, are we so unhappy about? What do we – those with the heavy hearts – talk about when we talk about independence? Do we have freedom from political control of our country?

Our beloved, unique language calls independence minivankan. It also means freedom in our language. Free from shackles, free from undue authority, free in thought, act and conscience. This minivankan is something we are yet to have.

The biggest freedom that I have seen us celebrate is the Constitution of 2008. We fought for it, sacrificed for it and we earned it. It came with such hope and enthusiasm! It made our hearts soar in flight and the whole nation, regardless of political alignment reverberated in joyous celebration. It brought with it the Chapter of Rights, the first ever in the history of Maldives. Written into the Chapter are all the freedoms our people have. To live, to earn, to raise our children, to speak our minds and to belong, to be part of this society that we call home, free from fear or persecution.

What has happened to it since that glorious 8th of August in 2008? The chapter has lain there, gathering dust. Of the 53 provisions guaranteeing fundamental rights in the Constitution, there is only one which the Supreme Court and Parliament have shown an interest in–and used at every opportunity: Article 16 – the provision that allows limitations on the rights provided in the Constitution.

The people have been completely removed from the political processes. They have become a mere ballot paper, nothing more, nothing less. The people are no more worthy of consultation in the direction that our nation should take. Let the people live in freedom and enjoy fully the fruits of this independence that we celebrate. Let there be inclusion, tolerance and respect. Let the people be part of this freedom.

Today would have been so different if the nation put our people forward. If we had let their say guide us, avoid blunders, speak from experience. How far behind they are. It feels as though sometimes ‘we’ refer to ‘some’. Why are all the lights and celebrations in the capital city? Where are the rest of the people? The keepers of the white beaches and blue waters? The nation expects us all to join the fireworks. Take a boat ride, pay for a bed and food and celebrate with ‘us’. This is not what the people want. They wish to be part of it, not an audience to it.

This nation can barely feed the people or care for them. People speculate on the expenditure on the lights and fountains alone. Why, when the average family can no longer bear the electricity bills as it is? Why spend the millions on festivities when the orphanage can hardly manage to feed the children there? The people do not agree with prioritising jubilee over necessity.

Our people live in a caged nation where simply expressing a wish to break free from it could have them imprisoned, or get destroyed or even be killed for trying it. This nation has lost too many lives, shed too much blood and tears with no recourse, no reconciliation and no accountability. Open the cages, and there shall be freedom. Have the courage to listen to the people. Their frustrations, their opinions and their two-cents-worth do matter, and they should not be punished for it. An equal say in our lives does not belittle anyone – why must it invoke such hatred? No! It is just an opinion, a freedom! Everyone is free to say it and to listen to it. We all should revel in what good can come out of it. The rest can be discarded.

This is just one view of what we talk about when we talk about independence. Or minivankan. What do the rest of our people feel? Has anyone tried to understand it?

Everything that we preach for must begin at home. No less for freedom and independence. Just because someone occupied our home for some years and then left it does not make it a free home if we are shackled inside of it.

About the author: Shahindha Ismail is the Executive Director at Maldivian Democracy Network. Shahindha has been working in fields related to human rights for ten years, and is the co-author of the MDN publication: Asaasee Haqquthakaai Minivankan [Fundamental Rights and Freedoms]. She has also contributed several articles and reports to human rights journals. She is a keen runner, and is married with one daughter. 

Photo: Among thousands of fairy-light decorations put up to mark Independence Day

Bingaa: a case for intellectual leadership on Maldivian affairs

Standoff

by Robert Carr

As I write, former Maldives National University Chancellor, scholar and 2013 MDP Vice-Presidential candidate Dr Mustafa Lutfi has been arrested following May Day 2015. In his book School Curriculum and Education of Maldives, which is based on his doctoral thesis, Lutfi critiques the various forces that have shaped the country’s education system. It was a book he gifted to Maldives National University Library in 2011. Adding to literature on the Maldives’ recent political history is Aishath Velezinee’s book The Failed Silent Coup: In Defeat They Reached for the Gun. The author offers a first-hand account of (alleged) corruption during her time as a member of the Maldives Judicial Services Commission from 2009 to 2011, circumstances that ultimately led her to become a whistleblower. Velezinee says, like Lufti, she offered to donate her book to the University library. However, her offer was turned down.

The relationship between intellectual activity and democracy ought to be one that enhances the public sphere. But how can scholarship contribute to this goal and flourish in a social and political environment that discourages rigorous, informed debate? In this essay I explore the idea that deficient or suppressed intellectual activity diminishes the quality of democracy; and, that a lack of critical inquiry equates to increased mobility for state operators when their policies are unchecked by engaged analytical minds. Although not exhaustive, I convey a literature review of scholarly and non-scholarly articles to articulate potential future directions for research on the political history of the Maldives. Peer-reviewed research is severely lacking in this area. Yet scholarship offers significant potential in terms of unpacking the consequences of political authority and informing responses to it.

Media narrative & international representations of the Maldives

Media have attempted to fill the knowledge gap vacated by scholarship. The narrative adopted by international media about the policies and practices of the second Gayoom regime (2013-today) is typically twofold. The first is captured in the depiction of the regime offered by Amal Clooney who, writing in The Guardian, opens with: “It may be famous for the pristine holiday beaches of its Indian Ocean coastline but the Maldives has taken a dark authoritarian turn.” The bundled imagery channels international readers’ existing knowledge of global tourist branding, suggesting simply: yesterday the Maldives was pristine, peaceful and sunny; today it is dark, evil and despotic.

The media narrative then tends to depict outrage at this “turn” and portrays the Maldives as democratically deficient. As Jose Ramos-Horta and Benedict Rogers’ write in The Guardian in relation to Nasheed’s sentencing: “On Friday night the final nails were hammered into the coffin of democracy in the Maldives.” It is thus not surprising that for many commentators the recent history of the tropical island state symbolizes a betrayal of values regarded by the international community to be inviolable such as democracy, transparency and human rights. In media discourse the country is also increasingly associated with a lack of press freedom and as a recruiting ground for Islamic State militants. These factors lend to a growing perception that the Maldives is tinkering on being a failed state and lend weight to advisory warnings to foreign tourists.

To draw on a local phrase, the bingaa (Dhivehi for ‘foundation slate’) of the ruling regime appears in international media coverage to comprise force, fear, money, intrigue, hard-line hostility to the opinions of foreign dignitaries, and a militaristic defense of sovereignty in place of heeding international condemnation of judicial and other shortcomings in due process. On this point it is worth mentioning how another media text – The Island President – may have contributed to these portrayals as a mode of “backgrounding”. Responding in The Guardian to the incarceration of former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed, his lawyer Amal Clooney refers to The Island President, which introduces viewers to some crucial political history regarding the first Gayoom regime (1978-2008). Clooney says Nasheed’s “remarkable story is chronicled in the acclaimed documentary”.

However, as an explanation of Nasheed’s imprisonment for 13 years on “terrorism” charges in the current political climate, his legal case needs to be put into greater context. As a case study, scholars are yet to unpack the internationally acclaimed film as a media/discursive text, the geo-political circumstances in which its subjects gained international notoriety, its success as a vehicle for the reproduction of ideologies and beliefs, and the extent to which it has shaped diplomatic and other commentators’ views on the subject of Maldivian politics.

Knowledge capacities & organization of the state

Grievances highlighted by both last week’s May Day protests and Nasheed’s imprisonment have revealed the need for greater understandings of the strategic, discursive and institutionalized hold on political power by the second Gayoom presidential regime. Ideally this would begin with an exploration of similar processes pertaining to the first Gayoom presidential regime and through identifying continuities and departures in each of these approaches to government. Moreover, through rigorous research and critique scholars can identify processes delivering opportunities including “Corruption, closed-door decisions, ‘jobs-for-the-boys’, pork-barrelling, being ignored by your [elected representatives], and, among other scurvy possibilities, shifting the fruits of the many to the few.”

The political currency of unchallenged historical knowledge concerning Maldivian statehood is significant. To exemplify these implications, the gap in scrutiny has had measurable impacts on the conduct of political life, embodied in the unqualified privilege – by international standards, that is – acquired by the three Criminal Court judges who heard Nasheed’s terrorism trial. None of the judges have law degrees. This deficiency has a functional role for the second Gayoom regime whose uncompromising policy platform requires generating electoral buy-in for reviving a quasi patron-client system that casts privilege on supporters, power to the wealthy and exile to detractors.

We can see how the function of knowledge deficiency plays out in the regime’s politicking; last week Maldives Foreign Minister Dunya Maumoon described the Presidency of Nasheed as “the single most brutal, dictatorial and violent period of rule in contemporary Maldivian history.” Being up close and personal to the subject matter her entire life – as daughter of 30-year autocratic ruler Maumoon Gayoom – Dunya’s grasp on Maldivian history may be, in her perspective, correct. And therein lies the problem. The role of scholars here is to critique her objectivity and assess the propaganda value of these statements. Moreover, any claims democratic governments make about history requires inquisitive dissection and fact-checking.

The myths, linguistic capital and political folklore surrounding political elites requires critical analysis and contextualisation. This includes unpacking how myth, image and symbols lend to cultivating power as well as popular tropes concerning the leaders themselves – take, for instance, the implications of networked information flows viz-a-viz ‘Anni’s lucky number’ (being 4) for the democracy movement, or why the Progressive Party of the Maldives chose the colour pink (some say because of the national pink rose). Furthermore this includes analysing literary overtures accompanying the first Gayoom regime such as Royston Ellis’ A Man for All Islands: A Biography of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. There are also two self-authored books by Maumoon Gayoom, The Maldives: A Nation in Peril (1998) and Paradise Drowning (2008) – both showcasing the former president’s orations on environmental challenges facing the Maldives.

Interestingly, while scholarly contributions to public debate are limited, intellectuals have been mobilized within the bureaucratic power structure of the Maldives under the current government. One outcome of the 2013 elections that delivered Yameen Abdul Gayoom the presidency is the delegation of Ministries to at least four highly educated political actors whose names are preceded by the title ‘Dr’. Critics suggest these appointments lend an air of prestige and respectability to a government losing the ideas contest. It may also capture a lingering deference to formality and titles within the Maldives’ political hierarchy, which is as much a cultural as it is an historical phenomenon. Collectively these Ministers have doctoral expertise in marine offshore aquiculture, civil engineering, and sharia law. My own consultations revealed that greater expertise is sought in foreign affairs, legal and judicial matters, public service, public policy, transparency, public health, communications, media and advocacy.

Intellectual vanguard

Without more methodical critique of the past, Maldivian democracy will continue to endure a wilderness of intrigue. Maldivians have expressed desires for greater knowledge about their country’s politics, parties and leaders. Many stated they want the country to have a firmer grip on its dealings with the international community, especially “big” countries like India, the US and China. Questions concerning the lack of knowledge and political biography are entwined with global trends and the necessity to respond to international actors. Knowing more about topics like foreign policy and what makes good public policy is about making an investment into national development, regional stability and social cohesiveness.

All but a handful of related and semi-related studies explore the politics of tourism (the Maldives’ “golden goose”), international relations, regional security strategy, legal interpretations of Maldivian politics, and the implications of economic transition and sustainability for the country. A proactive intellectual vanguard is crucial as much for consensus building as it is to initiating change. The importance of intellectuals as contributors to political change is emphasized in Gramsci’s efforts to accentuate the centrality of the “war of position” (the contest of ideas, values, the cultivation of collective memory and the formation of an “historic bloc”), to be waged in conjunction with a “war of maneuver” (waged through force and economic means). (Gramsci of course was referring to “organic intellectuals” – producers of knowledge articulating a cause from within – but I’ll leave that for another time.)

Yet there remain few peer-reviewed accounts of the contemporary political history of the Maldives and crucially histories ‘from below’ incorporating the impacts of civil society, institutions, cultural life and religion on democracy. One exception is the ongoing series of critical essays published via Dhivehisitee: Life and Times of Radicalisation & Regression Maldives authored mainly by Maldivian Dr Azra Naseem, who, while publishing in a non-academic outlet, is among the most critically engaged with the subject matter. Furthermore, Maldivian scholar Dr Athualla Rasheed has written several academic journal articles, but only with noticeable caution does he define President Nasheed’s resignation/ousting as the ‘pre and post–coup periods’.

And it is a hesitance worth unpacking. President Nasheed stepped down from power in February 2012 following what international commentators, like Clooney, have labeled a “coup” at military gunpoint. By contrast Nasheed’s successor and political opponents have defined this episode in smoother terms as a legal “transfer of power”, a position supported by the Commonwealth-backed Commission of National Inquiry (CoNI). Despite this, evidenced by public discourse is that continuing tension over how to define this moment lays at the heart of the struggle for democratic reform in the Maldives today. For Maldivian analysts, permitting ambiguity to define this moment is understandable and symptomatic of the pressures faced by autocratic subjects to refrain from ‘rocking the boat’.

By contrast international scholarly commentators have been at liberty to describe the event as a coup in solidarity with Maldivian democracy activists. For instance, in their essay on Dhivehisitee, Professor John Foran and PhD researcher Summer Gray (September 2013) issue little restraint utilizing the term “coup”. They support this view in Counterpunch, stating: “Two independent legal evaluations of the CoNI Report both unequivocally found the Report deficient”. Notwithstanding their extensive citation of supporting empirical materials, there is significant room to get the ball rolling towards producing some foundational peer-reviewed analysis on the subject matter.

Harnessing future knowledges

Through knowledge creation, research and a commitment to learning commentators may draw firmer conclusions about the history, and perhaps the future, of Maldivian democracy. This is particularly with regards to the various ways in which – as many commentators suggest – the second Gayoom regime has consolidated power, limited dissent, stacked the judiciary, maintained a contested human rights record, goaded opposition supporters into violent confrontations and mobilized security forces in response to May Day protests.

Enter: J.J. Robinson’s forthcoming book The Maldives: Islamic Republic, Tropical Autocracy (to be released in October in the UK and November in the US) which observes the thrusts of Maldivian democracy from the author’s perspective as former editor of Minivan News. Robinson describes the book as “a journalistic account of the Maldivian democracy experiment” with a particular focus on the role of judiciary, and makes the case that “the unconstitutional reappointment of Gayoom’s pet judiciary in August 2010 was the thing that really scuttled any hope of a stable democratic outcome.” Robinson’s account is to be the first ‘embedded’ narration of political change in contemporary Maldives (that is, at least by a non-national).

This contribution to public knowledge is set to be powerful, up close and engaging, and an example of why more of analytical knowledge is needed regarding the political history of the Maldives. Critique, ideas, knowledge creation, debate and intellectual leadership are vital for informing political change in the Maldives as well as international responses to the country’s looming political crisis.

While international media, the US, EU and India continue to convey outrage at the re-emergence of autocratic tendencies in the Maldives, little if anything is being delivered by the international community in terms of investments into capacity building intellectual culture and leadership. This is a shortcoming of international aid programs despite some countries like Australia facilitating education sector improvements since the days of the Nasheed administration.

Meanwhile, Velezinee, who began her PhD candidature at Erasmus University in 2015, says she hopes the Maldives “moves towards scholarly debates with a view to establishing the rule of law and a democratic culture.” The difficulty, she points out, is that “the subject matter means it is taboo for any public institution in the Maldives to be viewed implicitly or explicitly to act as a conduit towards learning about these events in any way, shape or form.” Velezinee adds: “Currently, all debate is left to politics and politicians, and the only ‘scholars’ engaging appear to be religious scholars with their own interests. We have to change the language of political debates.”

Optimistically, Maldivian researchers are dispersed all over the world. Away from home they are slowly beginning to piece together their political history. Perhaps the time has come to harness this network and undertake a more proactive dialogue between scholars interested in developing a political biography of the Maldives.

Non-peer reviewed academic resources of note

Colton, Elizabeth, ‘The Elite of the Maldives: Sociopolitical Organisation and Change’ (PhD Thesis), London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London, 1995. URL: http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/1396/

Jorys, Shirley, ‘Muslim by Law – A Right of a Violation of Rights? A Study About the Maldives’ (Thesis), 2005. URL: http://ebookbrowse.com/shirley-jorys-dissertation-muslim-by-law-pdf-d214056909

Mohamed, Mizna, ‘Changing reef values: an inquiry into the use, management and governances of reef resources in island communities of the Maldives’ (PhD Thesis), University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, October 2012.

Zahir, Azim, ‘Islam and Democracy: The Maldives Case Study’ (Masters Thesis), Master of Human Rights, University of Sydney, 2011.

Dr Robert Carr produced the Maldives National University Political Science Curriculum. He is a researcher at University of Western Sydney. Tweet: @robcarr09

Photo of standoff between pro-democracy supporters and the Maldives Police Service on 1 May, by Dhahau Naseem

Migrant workers’ voice: illegal and silenced in the Maldives

ExpatriateWorkers

by Mushfique Mohamed

As news of socio-political turmoil forces the world to shift its eyes away from the pristine beaches of its beautiful tropical islands, Maldives is losing its untainted image as a luxury tourist destination with more exposure of its appalling track record on human rights. This article looks closely at the lack of both compassion and adequate law enforcement in the Maldivian society’s (mis)treatment of the South Asian expatriate community. It highlights not just the plight of the many Bangladeshi labourers but also the increasing number of South Asian women who are becoming victims of the corrupt and prejudiced criminal justice system of the country.

In addition to the Maldivian population of approximately 330,000, there are 200,000 expatriate workers living in the country, of which a quarter does not have legal status in the country. The Maldives’ treatment of migrant workers is degrading enough for it to be called ‘modern-day slavery.’ The trade generates over US$ 123 million in illegal profits in the Maldives. Last week two Bangladeshi workers, Shaheen Mia and Kazi Bilal were brutally killed bringing to the fore, in tragic circumstances, the unheard voice of the subaltern in today’s Maldivian society.

The government on 25 March banned a planned protest against the deplorable treatment faced by expatriate workers. The protest was planned to highlight the resurgence in violent crime against the South Asian workers. The government of current President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom’s brother; Asia’s longest serving leader until August 2008, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, also criminalised a planned protest following similar racially motivated assaults in August 2007, threatening expatriates with deportation.

In addition to silencing their voices and denying them agency, the criminal justice system, primarily the Criminal Court and law enforcement authorities perpetuate injustices against the marginalised. The violation of their fundamental rights is facilitated through certain judicial actors who are untrained, uneducated and corrupt. These judges do not pay any attention to the Constitution or domestic laws or international legal instruments the Maldives has ratified. Increasingly women are becoming victims of the system.

Malékalyanam: buying brides

RubeenaAn Indian woman was arrested night before last on allegations of infanticide and attempted suicide, raising concerns that she could be subject to the same judicial torture as Rubeena Buruhanudeen who was kept under pre-trial detention for over four years. The New Indian Express reported that Rubeena was part of a procedure known in India as ‘Malékalyanam’ in which impoverished girls from the Indian state of Kerala are married off to Maldivian men. Rubeena, married off to a Maldivian man under this procedure, ended up in pre-trial detention in the Maldives for over four years, accused of killing the child she had with her Maldivian husband.

Fareesha Abdulla, a Maldivian lawyer who took the case in 2012 on a pro-bono basis, emphasised that the investigation and remand hearings were not conducted with interpreters. “She [Rubeena] can’t understand Dhivehi, but the entire investigation was carried out without an interpreter. Maldives’ police wrote down a statement in Dhivehi and she signed it,” said the defence lawyer. “Infanticide is a serious allegation but when she requested legal aid before I took on the case, the Attorney General denied it,” Fareesha Abdulla explained further.

Before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power, the Manmohan Singh government’s Minister for External Affairs also urged Maldives to repatriate such detainees. Modi was scheduled to visit the Maldives last month but with international concerns growing over the arrest of former President Mohamed Nasheed on 23 February 2015, took the Maldives off his tour of Indian Ocean island nations. Soon after the diplomatic brushoff, Rubeena was repatriated to India in early March.

Aminath Zara, a Nepalese woman who was fighting for custody of her child with a Maldivian succeeded only after a yearlong legal battle at the Family Court. Zara arrived in the Maldives initially in October 2009 as Tasi Telisa to work at a beauty salon as a beauty therapist. She converted to Islam in 2010. She then left the country in September 2011 and returned after marrying a Maldivian in Sri Lanka in December 2011. When the baby was three, her husband demanded Zara to go back to work; she was the sole breadwinner at times. According to Zara, the marriage came to an end due to her husband’s infidelity while she was away working.

The couple filed for a divorce at the Guraidhoo Magistrate Court in September 2013, but the proceedings and documents were all in Dhivehi, and an interpreter was not offered. The magistrate decided “disobedience” by the wife was sufficient grounds for divorce. As a result Zara became a homeless – and soon to be illegal – single mother. She filed a complaint at the Gender Ministry because her ex-husband was threatening to deport her and gain full custody of the baby. A Maldivian lawyer, Lua Shaheer, who was providing pro-bono legal assistance, said that Zara’s husband repeatedly told her “you are a foreigner, you will have no choice but to leave this country without the child.”

The Gender Ministry provided Zara with temporary accommodation for three months. At the end of the three months she moved back to the island of Guradhoo but could not stand the abuse she was subjected to. With nowhere to live, her former lawyer Lua Shaheer took Zara in to her own home. She is now represented by another lawyer, Fathmath Sama, whose firm took the case on pro-bono.

The husband was represented by Ibrahim Riza, an MP for Gayoom’s Progressive Party of Maldives. The main argument in court was that “the mother is a Buddhist, the mother’s family is Buddhist, and the child would be deprived of a Muslim upbringing.” Zara’s husband also accused her of “abandoning the baby for monetary greed.” Shaheer testified in court that Zara is a practicing Muslim. Even though Zara won custody, the verdict states she cannot leave the country without the ex-husband’s permission if she decides to leave with the baby, effectively leaving her stranded in the Maldives without a place to live.

According to the Indian High Commission in the Maldives, an Indian woman named Manyama Orsu was charged with pre-marital sex and abortion. According to the new penal code, abortions after 120 days of pregnancy are illegal, but a pregnancy caused by rape is an exception to the 120-day rule. Orsu was charged before the new penal code came into effect. The court proceedings against her went on for two and a half years. She confessed to the first charge, and the State dropped abortion charges bringing an end to her arbitrary detention, facilitating her repatriation in late March this year.

DhoonidhooThere are also reports of other foreign women held at Dhoonidhoo Island Detention Centre on allegations of prostitution, abortion and drug trafficking. Some of these women are victims of sex trafficking and trafficking in persons. But without a systematic mechanism to identify victims, or the mentality to view such individuals as victims, Maldives’ authorities exacerbate psychological and physical trauma suffered by human trafficking victims.

Two foreign women identified by police as sex trafficking victims in 2008 were provided temporary shelter before being repatriated with the help of their home country’s diplomatic mission in the capital Malé. Due to the lack of investigative infrastructure based on the problem of Trafficking in Persons, nobody was prosecuted for the crime, and the case was dropped due to “lack of evidence.”

Lack of infrastructure & lack of will

There are other instances where lack of legislation, and lack of enforcement, have hindered any efforts to tackle the problem. In 2009, a Bangladeshi man was chained inside a small room for weeks; the chains were removed only when the man was put to work. The employer was released after merely four months’ imprisonment due to lack of anti-trafficking legislation at the time.

The Maldives’ government passed anti-trafficking legislation only in 2013, motivated only by the fear of threatened international sanctions. The Bill had been in Majlis since 2011. However, expatriate workers from South Asian countries continue to be victimized under forced labour conditions notwithstanding the legislation. The US State Department’s Report on Trafficking in Persons states that ‘the [Maldivian] government does not have procedures in place to identify victims of human trafficking.’ As a result trafficked persons are further victimized by the corrupt criminal justice system. At the same time, the legal system remains highly inaccessible to foreigners, especially in relation to criminal law.

Transparency International’s local chapter provided over 560 expatriate workers with legal aid in 2014, mostly with regard to cases that consist of forced labour indicators. ‘We believe that migrant workers are the most vulnerable community in the Maldives today, they do not have access to the legal system due to the language barrier,’ Transparency Maldives’ Senior Project Coordinator for its Advocacy and Legal Advice Centre, Ahid Rasheed, has said.

‘Maldivian society in general views Bangladeshi expatriates as lower class non-citizens; harassment against them has been completely normalized. The authorities view them as the problem and not victims of discriminatory attacks and human trafficking offences.’ Highlighting a history of institutionalised xenophobia, Rasheed said ‘the latest word from the government we heard – regarding the protest – questions basic rights afforded to migrant workers, similar to how all previous governments neglected migrant workers’ grievances.’

The Maldives enacted the Employment Act in 2008, and as a Member State of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Act harmonises domestic law of the Maldives with the principles and standards prescribed by the organisation. Independent institutions such as the Employment Tribunal and Labour Relations Authority were established through this Act. ‘Forced labour’ is prohibited and broadly defined to be any instance where there are elements of undue influence, threat, or intimidation with regards to employment. The Act also addresses discrimination at the work place and ensures both local and foreign employees right to freedom from discrimination based on race, religion, social standing, political beliefs, marital status, gender, or family obligations.

It is a common misconception that ‘human trafficking’ or ‘trafficking in persons’ requires illegal entry, similar to ‘human smuggling.’ Human trafficking sometimes begins as smuggling, can end up as exploitation and trafficking, but not all trafficking involves crossing-borders.The United Nations (UN) defines ‘trafficking in persons’ as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation or the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Convention on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution was ratified by the Maldives in May 2003; a legal instrument recognizing the importance of establishing effective regional cooperation for preventing trafficking for prostitution and for investigation, detection, interdiction, prosecution, and punishment of those responsible for such trafficking.

The ILO defines the following as elements of forced labour: withholding payment and identity documents; abusive working and living conditions; debt bondage; restriction of movement; excessive overtime; deception; isolation; physical and sexual violence; and intimidation and threats. All of which are daily grievances faced by most low-skilled expatriate workers in the Maldives.

A report by the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM) in February 2009[8] states that Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan and Indian nationals are detained at the Malé Immigration Detention Center, managed by the Expatriate Monitoring Center under the Department of Immigration and Emigration. Ordinarily detained for not holding a valid passport, visa or work permit. HRCM urged the Maldives to become a member of the International Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers (ICRMW). The national human rights committee’s report recommended development and implementation of systematic procedures for government officials to identify victims of trafficking among vulnerable groups such as undocumented migrants and women in prostitution, who are human trafficking victims. It also urged identified victims of trafficking to be provided necessary assistance and not be penalized for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of them being trafficked.

CaptureThe US State Department has consistently raised the issue of increasing debt bondage among South Asian migrant workers under its annual Trafficking in Persons report. According to its most recent report, migrant workers pay agents around US$2,000-4,000 to work in the Maldives. There have been reports that some of the 200 registered agents bring migrant workers to the Maldives under terms of employment that amount to criminal acts of deception or fraud, entangling employees in a vicious cycle of debt. The report also recommends that Maldives accede to the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons.

The government has failed at implementing enacted laws, and it appears to be using the rise in violent crime to militarize the police service, and enact legislations that strip away the protections, freedoms and liberties enshrined under the Constitution that introduced democratization to the Maldives. As the focus remains on suppressing dissent from citizens who oppose the regime, the plight of the subaltern stays at the political periphery. The Maldives has yet to fulfill the minimum standards required to eliminate human trafficking.

Human trafficking victims are regularly penalized for acts that are the result of being trafficked; excluded from the legal system; and viewed as offenders. Maldivian authorities are known to detain such victims under inhumane conditions. The real perpetrators of trafficking such as employers, officials, recruitment agents or firms are rarely brought to justice, giving full impunity to these powerful offenders who have connections to transnational organized crime. The insularity observed among majority of Maldivians is reinforced on an institutional level by denying inalienable rights that are to be afforded to all citizens and non-citizens indiscriminately. Sex trafficking, forced labour, debt bondage and other forms of exploitation do not end with enacting legislations or acceding to treaties in order to be accepted as a member of the international community. A stipulation under law is only powerful to the extent to which it is realized, and for the subaltern – without the qualification to even speak – those rights are continually denied.

Mushfique Mohamed is a practising lawyer at Hisaan, Riffath & Co., and also works as a consultant for Maldivian Democracy Network.

Main Photo: primecollective.com, Rubeena Buruhanudeen, Minivan News