Mauritius: "We Are Not Animals," Say Foreign Workers

Officially, everything is fine in the export processing zones (EPZs) in Mauritius. But, in reality, many foreign workers suffer dismal working conditions. Those who organise to improve their lot do so under the constant threat of intimidation and deportation.

By the end of December 2007, the number of enterprises in the EPZs totalled 404, employing 67,314 people among whom 32,973 were foreign workers from mainly China, India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh.

These workers, according to the National Economic and Social Council (NESC), are essential for the economy of the southern African island state. The NESC is a statutory body created to aid consensus about social and economic issues in Mauritius.

Council chairperson Mohammad Vayid says the time when Mauritian enterprises thought of recruiting migrant workers on a temporary basis is gone. ''Our dependency on migrant qualified workers has become necessary as local workers do not perform well in certain tasks,'' he argues.

The NESC published a report in February 2007 which advocated that foreigners working on the island should enjoy the same rights as local workers. ''With globalisation, the migrant worker should be seen as an ally and not as a rival or a competitor,'' Vayid insists.

In the factories, things do not work this way. This is revealed by the public demonstrations, at times violent, by mostly foreign EPZ workers. They complain about low wages and generally poor conditions of work.

They are regularly seen sitting for days in front of the labour and industrial relations ministry's offices in Port Louis, attempting to lobby the authorities to intervene in their favour.

Foreign workers took to the streets several times during the past two years. Each time those considered as ''ring leaders'' were deported. Some 500 Sri Lankans were demanding better wages at the company Tropic Knits. In response, the Mauritian authorities deported 35 of them in August 2007.

At the Compagnie Mauricienne de Textile (CMT), a big factory employing more than 5,000 people, 177 foreigners were deported last year after taking part in an ''illegal demonstration'' about the lack of running water, the insufficient number of toilets and poor accommodation, among other complaints.

In 2006, some workers from China and India who had either tried to form a trade union or to protest were summarily deported. At times, peaceful demonstrations turned into riots which the police brutally suppressed.

''We are human beings, not animals,'' protesters would shout. They complained about poor working conditions in the factories. They also deplored the long working hours and being isolated from other workers.

Some of them have intolerable living conditions, sleeping in dormitories on benches without mattresses or in tiny bedrooms housing up to a dozen people.

Sometimes working conditions improved after interventions from the local authorities. But most of the time nobody knows really what's happening inside the factories and the dormitories as trade unionists are not allowed in.

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) released a report at the end of April 2008 criticising Mauritius for restricting the principles and rights in all eight of the core International Labour Organisation (ILO) labour conventions - in spite of having ratified all of these international legal instruments.

ITUC promotes workers' rights and interests through international cooperation between trade unions while the ILO is a United Nations' body tasked with promoting labour rights globally.

The report says it is extremely difficult for trade unionists to approach workers in Mauritius's EPZs to organise them in trade unions. Union officials are compelled to wait outside the factory gates to meet workers. Many of the workers are women who are under pressure to go home.