Korean Company imports “slave workers” from India, Vietnam and Bangladesh to exploit them in Algeria

“They are forced to work 16 hours a day without any respite and they sleep hungry”

This is the appalling situation of these hapless foreign “slave” workers and synonymous with a horrendous scandal of a large proportion which has been creeping in Algeria in recent years.

This is the way used by some foreign companies to have access illegally to the Algerian market and this of course with the complicity of some venal influential people inside the country.

A striking case in point is the Korean “Katei” Company now present in Algeria and which secured a major power-setting project in the Mahdia area in the province of Sétif in eastern Algeria.

Such a lucrative project affiliated to the National Gas and Electricity Company “Sonelgaz” was awarded to this Korean firm and its cost is estimated at around $80 million dollars.

What is strange with this Korean Company  is that the latter doesn’t exist legally on the official roster of those foreign companies accredited in Algeria, and we found out this serious legal flaw when we checked on this dubious firm during our recent exploratory visit to the employment Directorate of the eastern province of Sétif.

In the course of our field investigation into this disquieting issue, we recorded the concerns of Algerian workers and foreigners in this company , revealing that they were being treated them as second-class human beings compared to their Algerian work mates. These down-trodden workers hail from  from India Vietnamand Bangladesh,.

They asserted that despite working very hard, they were being used as sheer slaves in every sense of the word by this Korean Company in violation of all elementary labour laws and humanitarian conventions.

According to their testimonies, they work 16 hours every day without any wages, and sometimes they don’t eat and sleep hungry, by lying down on the naked floor inside  narrow and unsuitable rooms like where tamed animals.

 And far worse, these unfortunate foreign  are constantly watched and monitored by severe guards throughout the day even during the few weekly holidays.

More than 400 foreign workers, have entered Algeria on a tourist visa valid for three months only and “Echorouk” diligently met with many of them as part of its in-depth investigation and their declared ordeal is followed with great concern by their fellow Algerian workers but the authorities concerned have so far remained idly by in the face of this unacceptable labour policy adopted by this faulty Korean Compnay based in eastern Algeria.

It should be noted that modern slaves are defined as individuals subject to forced labor, debt bondage, human trafficking, forced sexual exploitation, and forced marriage. This is a considerably broader understanding of slavery that addresses issues of human and labor rights beyond the conventional understanding of the term as human property.

This is in part why the 2014 world report estimates 35.8 million modern slaves worldwide while the International Labor Organization (ILO) counts 21 million worldwide — the ILO estimate focuses on forced labor primarily. According to the Walk Free Foundation, evidence of modern slavery in one form or another was found in all 167 countries surveyed for the 2014 report.