PESHAWAR, Jan 25: Every year, scores of people from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata travel overseas, especially to the Middle East, for labour without ensuring their and their families' protection though a 'Protectorate of Emigrants' has been in place for the purpose since 1970s, say officials.
Jabbar Chaudhry at the 'Protectorate of Emigrants' office in Peshawar told Dawn on Wednesday that his organisation protected emigrant labourers/workers' legal rights and physical wellbeing by two-year insurance."For that, they have to get their passports with emigrant worker visas stamped by us before going abroad," he said.
Mr Chaudhry said if labourers/workers got injured, lost body part(s), got paralysed or even lost life, their nominees like parents or wives could get one million rupees as insurance.
"It is unfortunate that many emigrant workers don't know about it," he said.
The official said the insurance money often didn't reach the relevant families due to the ignorant emigrant workers' inability to provide computerised national identity cards of their parents or wives when they got their passports stamped by the protectorate.
"They come with a brother or a male cousin but don't produce their wives or parents' CNICs," he said. He referred to a case in which a woman was denied insurance money after her husband was killed by his nominee brother.
He said many were denied insurance money after the death of their relative emigrant workers on failure to produce CNICs and called for better public awareness of the issue.
Mr Chaudhry said a proposal had been sent to the relevant authorities for doing away with the CNIC production condition to claim insurance.
He said it had been suggested that only relation of an emigrant worker should be mentioned in insurance forms so that that could be verified when the dependents of the deceased showed up to claim insurance money. He said a large number of people from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata migrated to the Middle East as labour in the construction field and drivers.
"In such fields, the risk of injuries and even deaths is high. The Peshawar office of the 'Protectorate of Emigrants' protects 4,000 to 5,000 workers on a monthly basis," official said.
An official tasked with briefing people going abroad for work said mostly, workers were unaware of their legal rights.
He said not only insurance was useful but also getting a protector stamp on passport entitled emigrant workers to help by Pakistani embassy or consulate in case of any legal or other trouble.
He said many people traveling abroad on work visa lacked awareness and were stopped at airports for being without protector stamp on their passports.
