There is a movie on Netflix The Goat Life, I really suggest to watch this movie. It is the bitter truth that so many people go through. It's a real-life story of a man travelling from India to Saudi Arabia for work and then he gets caught up with a wrong sponsor and how his life becomes miserable for 3 long years, where he almost reached to a stage of losing his life. With great difficult finally manages to get his freedom and life back.

The story shown in the movie is an extreme case, but in reality also such things are happening. When people come for labor jobs they are hired by consultants back home. These consultants charge them a very big fee to get a visa and a sponsor. Without a sponsor one cannot work here in Middle East region. A sponsor is a person who is of the middle east origin from the country and he will sponsor people who would want to come and work in the gulf, he will have his own fees for sponsoring.

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A lot of sponsorers are good people but there will be a few who can really make your life a hell. When the person arrives at the airport, the sponsor will arrange for the pick-up and then take them to their respective accommodation and then make them understand their job. The accommodation for the labourers will always be provided by the sponsor. A sponsor can be a Company or an individual. If it's a company then the person does not need to worry because then everything is as per company set rules. Butt if the sponsor is an individual then one has to be very careful, because no one will know how that person will be by nature.

Most of the house helpers come on individual sponsor visa. Once they come the sponsor takes away their passport. The reason they give is that they take it because these people can lose it, but the real thing is that taking away their passport gives them full control over the worker. Then as I said how the sponsor will behave depends on their character and some of them are really very mean, they make the person work for long hours, do not give them enough rest time. Meals may also be compromised and the quality of life becomes very poor for the person.
They will not be sent home also for many years, because the passport is in their control. It's a lot of mess that the labour class people go through and sometimes I also feel it's their luck on what type of sponsor they get.

But it's a sad and a real situation in the gulf, specially for the labor class people. Back home people get lured with the name of a job in gulf but only when they come here they get to know the real picture of the place. Thankfully Oman is a better place in these conditions and the Ministry has some set rules but then at the end of the day when these people work for individual families then it is all up to the family how to treat them and there are no set rules there.

This movie portrays the harsh realities and that not everything that shines is gold.

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