Job-seeking Indians facing problems in Cyprus
Monday July 17 2006 13:10 IST

Newindpress (subscription), India
July 17 2006

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A number of Indians, who have gone hunting for
jobs in Cyprus are feared to have encountered legal problems there
after their employers reportedly breached the terms of contract.

Help for the beleaguered Indians could be slow in coming, as the
incidents are believed to have occurred in the Turkish-occupied area
of the politically-split island where the official Cyprus government
has little say.

The Armenian Research and Ethnographic Centre in Nicosia, which claims
to be an ethnic and civil rights NGO offering help and assistance to
Indian nationals, alerted this website’s newspaper, through a letter,
on the problems being faced by the Indian nationals.

According to the centre, many Indians have "encountered problems and
disputes with their employers," some within weeks and others within
months of their arrival on the island in search of employment.

"In spite of the intervention of the Local Ministry of Labour
and Social Insurance, these people end up, if they were to fail
(to get help) through our office, at the law office of a local
advocate/barrister where they have to pay exorbitant fee, which they
cannot afford," says the letter written by V H Malian, who is the
founder-director of the Armenian Research and Ethnographic Centre.

Malian says that his office has limits in intervening in such cases.

But he has a list of names of the Indians who are facing problems. So
does the Indian High Commissioner to Cyprus. The families of the
Indians also know about their plight, he writes.

Unfortunately, the Indian High Commission in Cyprus is yet to act
and his agency has failed to elicit any response from the recruiting
agencies of the Indians, he said.

When contacted, Andreas G Skarparis, the High Commissioner of the
Republic of Cyprus to India, said he was not aware of the problem,
but feared that the incidents could have taken place in the northern
areas of Cyprus which had been under Turkish occupation since 1974.

The claim of a Turkish Republic of Cyprus has not been accepted by
the UN.