Noor Rafeh, a young Syrian woman living in northern Syria Latakia’s province, despite several attempts, has failed to reach Iraq in search of a job opportunity. For two years, she tried everything she could to fulfil her family’s dream of finding a fitting job.
A lack of job opportunities, her falling victim to gangs trafficking foreign labour, and repeated attempts to lure her into immoral practices, are reasons that prevented Noor, 33, from reaching Iraq at a younger age.
As she sat quietly on a wooden chair in the Reda Alwan Cafe in the neighbourhood of Karrada in central Baghdad, she recounted that during her journey looking for work in Iraq, like many other Syrians, she approached many Iraqi officials and people of social status to achieve her goal. She started off by being accepted initially as an employee at a beauty salon in central Baghdad.
On February 7, 2022, Noor was called in for an interview with the salon’s management in the Syrian capital of Damascus. She was then informed that she had been approved for employment with a salary of $500, including room and board. She was asked to sign an employment contract in Homs which asked for $500 as insurance, which surprised her.
Iraq has seen a continuous increase in the number of Syrian immigrants. Many organisations have documented cases of arbitrary arrest, rape, slavery, and enforced disappearance.
It was difficult for Noor to come up with the money, so she had to borrow it from a friend, only to discover later that the entire agreement was fictitious, aimed at trapping Syrians in a fraud scheme.
The phenomenon of smuggling illegal foreign workers into Iraq and the unacceptable practices that people who are smuggled are exposed to casts a shadow over life in Iraq. The government does not maintain official statistics or a database on the numbers of foreign workers coming in.
Ahmed Al-Asadi, Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, said in a televised statement that “there are 800 thousand to a million foreign workers in Iraq, of whom only 160,000 to 170,000 are registered with the Social Security Department.”
Among the foreign workers present in Iraq, there are 300,000 Syrian workers who work without a licence and who entered Iraq via smugglers networks, according to Al-Asadi.
A New Trap
All of Noor’s attempts to recover the $500 failed. The management of the supposed salon then promised her a job in a private kindergarten in Diyala, northeast of Baghdad.
On August 23, 2022, Noor – the sole breadwinner for her parents and two younger brothers – arrived in Erbil. This was after her family’s living conditions deteriorated. The head of the household lost his job due to contracting COVID, a long hospitalisation followed, and the family were unable to provide him with treatment.
Upon landing at Erbil airport, she found a private car waiting for her with a man and a woman who took her to Diyala. She found herself in a part of the country she did not know.
According to information obtained by Jummar from a security official in the Iraqi Ministry of Interior (MOI), foreign workers use a variety of illegal methods to enter the country. Some use the Zurbatiyah, Mehran and Shalamcheh ports, while others use Syrian land crossings. Others come through the Kurdistan region from the airports of Erbil and Sulaymaniyah. Those arriving by land are smuggled into the capital and the rest of the provinces.
Noor overheard the director of the Diyala kindergarten say to another woman, “Don’t sell her to anyone else,”
Noor felt extremely afraid and anxious about what was happening on this dangerous journey.
At 1:00 am on August 24, 2022, Noor was handed over to the kindergarten director’s son and sister, who took her to the kindergarten in the new Baqubah area of Diyala province, after paying the owner of the beauty salon $700.
“During three months of working in the kindergarten, I was treated very badly by the director,” Noor says.
The director asked her to do things that Noor considered to be degrading to her dignity.
She sought help from her father, who spoke to the kindergarten director and asked her to improve how they treated Noor. The director insulted the man and hung up on him, Noor said.
She then thought of escaping and did so with great effort.
Noor now works in a cafe on Al-Saadoun Street in central Baghdad a daily wage of 40,000 dinars ($25) for 13 consecutive hours of work.
A horrific reality in Iraq
Noor said she has been living a horrific reality since she arrived in Iraq.
She has not sent any money to her family because she has not received what she was owed and has been constantly exposed to fraud and deception.
Since 2014, Iraq has seen a steady increase in the number of Syrian immigrants, while organisations have documented many cases of arbitrary arrest, rape, slavery, and enforced disappearance.
According to Najm Al-Aqabi, spokesman for the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Iraq has granted work permits to 103,000 workers.
“Some foreign workers have entered the country through religious tourism and then went into the labour market. No one can accurately track their numbers,” Al-Aqabi added.
Linda Al-Marqadi initially agreed to the position of media officer with a monthly salary of $900.
When she arrived in Iraq and began working, she was surprised by sudden changes in her contract without her knowledge, including a reduction of her salary.
The Iraqi government created a joint committee between the Ministries of Labour, Interior and Immigration to develop proposals regarding the presence of foreign workers in the country. The proposals included ensuring government approval of the entry of foreign workers into the country, issuing a work permit and then granting a visa.
They also agreed to grant those who might have violated the labour law a grace period of 45 days to address any legal issues with their employment.
Fear of the Unknown
The search for suitable work for journalist Linda Al-Marqadi, 43, became an ongoing tragedy after she left Syria for Iraq.
She obtained a work contract with an oil company in Basra, in southern Iraq. Linda initially agreed to fill the position of media officer with a monthly salary of $900.
When she arrived in Iraq and started working, she was surprised by sudden changes in her contract without her knowledge, including reducing the salary to $600.
“This is a hideous exploitation of Syrian workers,” said Al-Marqadi.
Due to additional factors, including being housed in remote caravans with men, she left her Basra job and headed to Baghdad. She worked in Baghdad for several satellite channels and news websites. She has now settled in a role as a producer on an economic program at a satellite channel with a salary of $600 per month.
She realised that her salary is much lower than that of her Iraqi colleagues.
“There is a view of Syrians that $100 is too much for them because of the deterioration of the Syrian lira. So, we are given low salaries,” she told Jummar.
She describes herself as strong, a quality which has protected her from harassment.
Despite all the difficulties, Al-Marqadi was satisfied with her presence in Iraq. She believes that overall Iraqis are kind and treat Syrians well.
However, her work for Iraqi media outlets has not provided her with any advantages. She still does not even have a residence permit.
Abuse and loss of rights
Workers in some human rights organisations have documented the reality of labour trafficking, slavery, forced labour, and extortion in Iraq.
According to attorney Hadeel Al-Azzawi, who works to defend the rights of foreign workers, a Kenyan worker in Iraq was raped in 2019 by the son of the owner of the house where she worked, and a criminal case was filed against him at the Al-Quds Police Station in Baghdad.
The worker was deceived by the family of the accused, who is a medical doctor.
They made an agreement that she would marry him for 30 days, giving her three thousand dollars and a ticket to Kenya in exchange for dropping the case. The worker accepted the offer without informing a lawyer and was subsequently deported and deprived of everything that was offered in the agreement.
Also in 2019, while accompanying a delegation from the Human Rights Commission to the homeless women’s home in Al-Salihiya in central Baghdad, Al-Azzawi discovered the presence of ten foreign workers who had run away from their employers, most of whom were Kenyan.
They had fled because their rights were being violated as well as experiencing physical and verbal assaults.
The lawyer said that most foreign workers enter through Kurdistan and are smuggled into Baghdad via rough roads not controlled by Iraqi security.
Workers, both male and female, are often exploited by employers in terms of wages, working hours, and physical and verbal abuse.
“These illegal activities have created great wealth for individuals and groups. This encourages them to continue,” said Al-Azzawi.
Government insomnia
Abbas Fadhel, Director of the Department of Labour and Vocational Training at the Ministry of Labour, said that foreign labour was a concern for the government and its relevant ministries.
He pointed out that there are inspection teams that conduct daily field visits to workers’ sites in order to enforce the law and monitor violations against foreign workers.
According to reports from the Ministry of Labour’s inspection committees, more than 3,500 companies in Baghdad and the provinces have violations registered against them related to the employment of foreign workers. This is despite the Cabinet’s decision to oblige companies to employ 50 percent Iraqi workers and not to employ foreign workers without review with the ministry to obtain a work permit.
These companies have been referred to the Ministry of Labour courts, Fadhel said.
Regarding violations that foreign workers are exposed to in Iraq, Fadhel reported that approximately 177 cases of violations were documented in 2022 related to discrimination, non-standard work schedules, forced labour, verbal and physical assault, and even cases of rape.
Hanaa Al-Samarrai, head of the Social and Tourism Services Union, believes that foreign workers in Iraq constitute about 71 percent of the total workers on various projects.
“Foreign labour drains hard currency worth eight billion dollars annually,” she told Jummar.
According to official reports, Iraq has experienced high unemployment rates since the US occupation in 2003. With the change of governments, these rates have increased as a result of the absence of clear policies that provide opportunities for government appointments or within the semi-governmental or private sector.
The unemployment rate in Iraq is about 16.5 percent, according to the Ministry of Planning.
Foreign workers in Iraq face challenges in returning to their home countries, due to their lack of a residence permit and work contract.
The cost of the trip
In late 2019, a worker from Bangladesh named Rajab, who had not obtained a residence permit or work contract by the date of this publication, arrived via a smuggling trip that stretched from Bangladesh to the Emirates, through Iran, then Erbil and finally Baghdad.
The trip cost him five thousand dollars.
Upon his arrival in Baghdad, he worked in a factory manufacturing plastic food utensils around Nahrawan, northeast of the capital.
He worked for 15 hours a day for 20 thousand Iraqi dinars ($12). At times, he would receive one free meal.
“I felt discriminated against in both treatment and wages. An Iraqi worker who worked shifts received double my wages,” he told Jummar.
After seven months, he left the factory and got an opportunity in a grocery and household goods store in central Baghdad’s Karrada neighbourhood through one of his friends.
He still works there today for a monthly salary of $400. His shift starts at ten at night and ends at six in the morning.
Every three months, Rajab sends $300 to $400 to his family in Bangladesh. He is now seriously considering returning to Bangladesh next year after he has raised enough money to open a water bottling plant there.
Visiting and then working
Visits to religious sites in Iraq are occasions exploited by foreign workers to reach the country.
The Iraqi government agrees to grant foreigners entry visas to perform certain visitation rituals. They then infiltrate the labour market illegally, according to a senior security official in the Civil Status, Passports and Residence Directorate. The search for work becomes a risky journey that often ends in arrest.
The conditions of detention in Iraqi prisons are poor. Detainees suffer from malnutrition and lack of drinking water, in addition to the spread of contagious skin diseases such as scabies, according to testimonies of foreign workers whom Jummar contacted.
A security official told us that the Residence Directorate of the Ministry of Interior has this year won 157 lawsuits against private companies that recruit foreign workers who are violating the terms and conditions of the residence law in Baghdad and other provinces.
He pointed to the spread of contagious diseases such as viral hepatitis and AIDS among Asian expatriates.
“The search for work becomes a risky journey that ends in arrest.”
In 2022, the MOI’s Residency Affairs Directorate dealt with 43,000 cases of departure including the deportation of foreign workers.
These workers violated the Foreigners’ Residence Law No. 76 of 2017.
From the beginning of 2023 until August of the same year, 11,885 Arab and foreign residents were registered, including 5,423 Asian workers.
During the same period, 6,423 foreigners were deported for violating residency conditions.
However, Noor escaped these deportation efforts and has been residing in Iraq without residency for two years. She is hoping to save enough money that would enable her to return to Syria, and then try to migrate again to a European country.
This text was produced with support from the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, but its contents are the responsibility of Jummar, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the sponsoring organisation.