[WATCH] Living in fear: ‘It could have easily been me’

Migrant workers in Malta have faced up to another deadly reminder of how black men and women fear for their lives at the mercy of exploitative employers.

The scenes of construction worker Jaiteh Lamin left for dead by his employer Glen Farrugia on a Selmun kerbside after a two-storey fall, depicted the curse of systemic racism in small, Catholic Malta. Upon being succoured by passers-by, the injured Lamin could only weep and pray for mercy, fearing he might be sent to jail.

As told to MaltaToday by a group of migrant workers who crossed into Malta irregularly years back, even despite being active members of the community and even tax-registered workers, they still fear for their safety in their everyday place of work.

“Having seen Lamin on the pavement, I couldn’t even eat, because it could have easily been me,” Ahmed Abdul Razak told this newspaper.

Lamin, 32, is now recovering in hospital after falling two storeys at a building site he was working at on Tuesday. Glen Farrugia is said to have gathered his workers to place Lamin at the back of his van, on a timber plank, after the fall. The contractor had promised Lamin that he would be taking him to hospital, but instead he had him pulled out of the van and ditched him on the side of a road.

Farrugia was denied bail when charged in court on Thursday.

Ahmed Abdul Razak, a Nigerien of 29 years of age, arrived to Malta 15 years ago. Still, he says Lamin’s incident is a common occurrence. “I work in construction, and it can happen to me too. I know a lot of guys who have fallen down and broken their legs or other body parts, and nothing happens,” he said.

Now a group of foreign workers are calling on the Maltese government to recognise their human rights, and make the process of acquiring work permits and identification documents easier for them to acquire. An office for temporary permits for asylum seekers, once mooted by the Labour administration, was never established.

A demonstration had been planned a number of weeks prior to Lamin’s incident, but now the public outrage has meant plans had to be pushed forward. “It is time for us to come together, and send a message to the government that the situation must change,” Ahmed Karim Abdul, 40, from Togo, said.

“I was scared, I couldn’t sleep. A lot of migrants are doing construction and domestic work. We go to construction sites which are 11 storeys high. So, when I heard that someone fell two storeys and was dumped on the road, I said… imagine what they would have done if I fell 11 storeys?” he said. “I was telling myself, if something like that happened to me, they would bury me.”

The workers are rightly demanding a less bureaucratic system for migrants living in Malta to acquire documentation that will allow them to work, instead of being absorbed into the black economy by employers who pay minimum wages – sometimes less – and without any sort of protection under working time rules.

Abdul says he recently regularised a long-drawn tax situation after the authorities denied him the renewal of his documentation. “I paid the taxes I had to pay and yet I still don’t have an ID card. I cannot go see my family, or take a holiday to relax. I don’t benefit from anything, despite paying tax.

“Without documentation, we cannot officially apply for a job. But we cannot stay home doing nothing. We have to work without a permit. We know the risk, but we still do it.”

Osman Douglas Mohammed, 32, arrived to Malta from the Ivory Coast. He says people treat migrant workers like him as not worthy of being human. “I am scared. If you throw somebody in the road, you’re treating him like garbage. Even dogs have an ID card these days, but a human being like me and you, no.”

“I have been here for 15 years,” Razak says. “I want to help the country, and I want to keep on helping the country, till I die, but I need something small from the government. Just help us, a little bit,” he said. “What I’m feeling now is that they don’t give a damn. They did this to my brother. And we have to check things because they are not very good.”

The protest will be held on Monday morning at 10 am outside parliament, and will take the shape of a migrant worker-organised strike. “We need to show how important the foreign work force is to this country,” an organizer said.