Migrant workers in the Gulf: after the outrage, the other side of the coin

The plight of migrant workers in the Persian Gulf, more particularly in Qatar, host of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, is the subject of much ink flow these days. But there is the other side of the coin. Workers from South Asia – India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka – the main providers of this workforce, sent last year $157 billion to their families back home. “This windfall which has been arriving for thirty years has transformed the landscape of Kerala, a state in southwestern India and one of the main sources of migrant workers in the country”, testifies Sebastian Irudaya Rajan, president of the International Institute for Migration and Development, located in Trivandrum, the state capital.