A meeting was held yesterday at HRCM concerning a complaint received from several members of the tourism industry concerning their exclusion from the employment act

News | 02 July 2008

A large number of people working in the tourism industry, via a signed petition, has filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission to protest their exclusion under section 3,(a) of the employment Act from the basic rights of employees stated under chapter four.

This petition was handed over to the commission by 7 representative members at a meeting held yesterday.

In this meeting they had also talked at large about the problems the Maldivian tourism labour force faced in their work environment, specifically highlighting the discrimination between expatriate and local employees, lack of job security, insufficient salaries, difficulty in performing religious rites such as praying and fasting during Ramazan, unfavourable living conditions, the dilemmas of taking leave and being deprived of service charges.

Regarding the issue the president of the HRCM Mr. Ahmed Saleem said that it is not only a concern but a pity that Maldivian labour force working in the tourism industry has been excluded from the constitutional power to attain their basic rights at work given that the tourism industry is a major source the Maldivian economy survives on.