Are you an Indian seeking a job in the Gulf country or have a longing wish to settle in the UAE? If yes, you might have to put your thoughts on hold or wait until you receive an official permit / visa from the employer for Indians can no longer visit UAE on visit visas.
With the increasing number of duping and fraud cases being registered, the Indian Consulate in UAE has restricted job hunting for Indians on visit visas. So until there is authentication from the employer and permit visas, there is no entry in the UAE now.
The advisory follows a high number of calls and visits to the Consulate by Indian workers who have been duped by agents or employers on a regular basis. Consul-General of India in Dubai Vipul said, “the mission did not have the precise data on the number of such calls because most such calls are complex and raise a variety of issues but were majorly from workers who come for employment or are searching for employment on visit visas.”
Not only men, there have been many cases of women being forced to work as maids by dubious agents who get them to the UAE on visit visas as well as sending them to Oman and other countries.
The consulate issued 225 air tickets in 2016 and 186 in the first half of 2017 to stranded workers. “In a recent case, in June, we repatriated 27 workers hailing from Uttar Pradesh who came to the UAE in February- March this year and were promised jobs. However, they were not given any jobs and were left to fend for themselves by the agents,” he said.
In the first half of this year, the consulate received a total of 540 labour complaints of which over 250 have been resolved, the report said. Apart from this, duplicate and fake visas is another major problem that UAE is fighting against.
So in order to handle such visa frauds, the mission has issued an advisory to the Indian jobseekers, providing them useful links from the UAE government departments through which they can make preliminary verification of the authenticity of the employment offers and entry permits.