Minister of Economic Development Fayyaz Ismail has revealed the government has stopped the trafficking of foreign workers into the country. He made the statement while responding to questions at the parliament.
Responding to a question regarding the number of undocumented foreigners, Minister Fayyaz said the latest survey shows there are 281,000 foreigners currently in the country. The minister said the number of Bangladeshi nationals in the country could be over 100,000 even though the official statistics show the number to be around 64,000.
Minister Fayyaz said the government has been unable to determine the exact number, as the previous record-keeping system did not properly register the number of foreigners arriving in the country. However, the minister said the government is currently making improvements to the record-keeping system. He also highlighted the issues in the previous system for keeping records of foreign workers and said the government has not yet completely fixed the Expat Online System.
Furthermore, Minister Fayyaz said trafficking of foreign workers into the country is a 25-year-old problem and that the main victims are Bangladeshi nationals. However, the minister said the current government has now dealt with the problem of human trafficking in the country.
He also provided details on the quota for expatriate workers and said that a yearly average of 20,000 workers was brought to the Maldives from 2013 to 2018, adding less than 100 workers arrived in the country in the last two years.