Admin
21 July 2024
*Photo copy of a video mailed by workers from Cameroon in West Africa explaining their plight.
Around 27 workers from Jharkhand stranded in Cameroon are returning to Jharkhand.
They are expected to land today( Sunday).
Earlier, they had appealed to the Centre to evacuate them from the Central African nation. The workers hail from Bokaro, Giridih and Hazaribagh.
In a video message, the workers had claimed they were brought to Cameroon on March 31 by a private company. However, the company has not been paying wages to the workers for the last four months.
The workers claimed they were running out of food and water and did not even have money to recharge their phones.
Bebi Devi, Jharkhand’s Minister for Department of Women, Child Development and Societal Security, had requested the External Affairs Ministry to ensure their safe return and tagged minister S Jaishankar.
“ As many as 27 youths from Bokaro, Hazaribagh and Giridih districts of our Jharkhand state are stranded in Cameroon, South Africa. All of them were working in a private company there, but they have not been paid their salary for the last four months," Devi had tweeted.
A social worker and activist, Sikandar Ali, who works on the issue of migrant workers, has also demanded the Central and state governments to take concrete diplomatic initiatives for the safe return of the workers.
Many such cases have come to light in the past in Jharkhand as well. Last year, a group of migrant labourers stranded in Saudi Arabia appealed to the Jharkhand government to facilitate their return.
The labourers from Bokaro, Giridih and Hazaribagh districts claimed they were engaged by a contractor for construction work. However, the contractor stopped the work and did not pay them. In 2022, a group of workers from Jharkhand stranded in Mali were rescued after they appealed to the Indian authorities for help on social media.
The workers claimed their employer did not pay them for months and their contractor, who recruited them for the job in the west African nation, allegedly vanished with their passports.
(Inputs credit indiatoday.in)
