More than a million foreign workers, most without legal permits, are currently employed in Iraq, raising significant economic and security concerns, Iraqi officials and experts revealed on July 29.

The Iraqi Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare has disclosed an alarming increase in unauthorised foreign labour, with the influx affecting job prospects for local workers and potentially posing security risks.

This problem has not just appeared. However; it has been building for several years due to the country’s porous borders and lack of awareness on who remains in the country following years of wars, including the US invasion in 2003 and subsequent rise of the Islamic State, the new comments revealed to Kurdistan 24.

"These foreign workers have dominated our domestic market in an unorganised and unsupervised way," said economist Nasser Kinani to the Kurdish language television station.

"It's not just about lost job opportunities for Iraqis; there's a serious security risk as well."

Kinani added that many of these workers lack proper documentation, work permits and background checks.

 

50,000 Pakistanis have vanished in Iraq

The issue gained international attention in July when Pakistan's Minister of Religious Affairs, Chaudhry Salik Hussain, claimed that 50,000 Pakistani pilgrims who had visited Iraq for the Ashura ceremony had gone missing, with reports suggesting they had remained in order to work illegally.

The financial cost of repatriating 50,000 undocumented Pakistani migrants from Iraq to Pakistan is estimated at approximately $50mn, according to former Iraqi Transport Minister Amer Abdul Jabbar Ismail on July 28.

Current Labour Minister Ahmed al-Asadi has acknowledged the problem and promised to address it.

However, no further details have been provided regarding the alleged missing Pakistani nationals or comprehensive plans to tackle the broader issue.

Workers from several countries are coming to Iraq with fellow Arab speakers among them. In the case of Egypt, some 40,000 workers have officially entered the country in the past year or so, with a larger proportion likely also unregistered like their Pakistani colleagues.

The number of Egyptian workers in Iraq is expected to increase in the coming years, given recent agreements between Iraq and Egypt.

In June 2023, the two countries signed 11 memoranda of understanding (MoUs) to enhance trade, tourism and investment. This builds on historical cooperation, including during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s when Iraq brought in 1.5mn Egyptian workers due to workforce depletion.

 

IDPs across Iraq

Part of the growing problem of former fighters and families is the ongoing trouble with what to do with the internationally displaced people. Originally these people entered Iraq and Syria when the ISIS group controlled portions of both countries; however, following its defeat the remaining people were rounded up and sent to prison camps in both countries.

According to US Military Centcom (Central Command), the ISIS threat in Iraq is still real and present, with the group having claimed 153 attacks in the country and neighbouring Syria from January to June 2024.

Another aspect of who is where is internally displaced people (IDPs) in the country – these people uprooted by the terror group have had nowhere to go, likely not registered new births and become shadow people within their own country.  

On July 11, during a press conference in Sulaymaniyah, the Iraqi Minister of Migration, said: “About 2,500 families lived in displacement camps in Sulaymaniyah.

“Around 1,800 of them returned, while 700 chose to settle in Sulaymaniyah,” noting that “about 22,000 families are living outside the camps in Sulaymaniyah.”

The Kurdistan Region has historically served as a sanctuary for IDPs due to its relative stability and economic development; however, as the country now moves on from years of bloodshed, the issue of those without a place to go is reaching a crescendo.

 

Outward migration from Iraq

One of the biggest issues for Iraq to remain a functioning economy is the retention of its young population, something it has been woefully bad at in recent years despite the general cessation of violence, according to recent data released by Kurdish media.

According to data collected by local Rudaw media, around 20,000 people from Iraq and Kurdistan region leave the country each year, with their arrival in Europe being well documented, including the now almost daily boat transits to the shores of southern England by gangs believed to be headquartered in Kurdish areas of both Iraq and Iran, according to previous Sky News report.

Officially, more than 760,000 people migrated from Iraq since 2015, with the lowest number during that period being recorded in 2023 with 19,500 migrants, the report adds, quoting Hussein Hama Salih, the Greece representative of Summit (Lutka) Foundation for Refugees and Displaced Affairs.

However, secretive agreements between European countries and Iraq appear to be quietly attempting to return these migrants back to their home country after the surge in numbers in recent years.

“Most of the people that migrate to Europe are from the Kurdistan Region and a smaller number are from Iraq’s other areas and provinces; therefore the majority of the casualties are also from the Kurdistan Region,” Salih told Rudaw.

According to EU data, in 2023 the top 30 citizenships to apply for first-time asylum cases in the EU, those claiming to be from Syria, outnumbered the rest, followed by Afghanistan.

 

Official cases from Iraq

However, despite these figures suggesting Iraqi applicants remain low, the lack of credible data out of Iraq’s duelling authorities suggest that many of those leaving the country are potentially applying for refugee status under Syrian nationality, something which is remarkably easy to do with no paperwork behind the person when they arrive in Europe, as the Sky News report noted.

As EU data suggests, the vast majority of those arriving in the 27-member bloc are mostly males, topping 70%, and which are classified as 18 to 34 years old. Germany remains the number one destination, according to the data, followed by Spain and France.

“Syrians, Afghans, Turks, Venezuelans and Colombians lodged the most applications for asylum – together accounting for almost half (48.0 %) of all first-time asylum applicants in EU countries in 2023,” the EU noted.

The tide could be turning on the emigres, as an investigation led by the German public broadcasters NDR, WDR and the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper revealed that in October 2023, the German government secretly reached a deportation agreement with the government of Iraq, which had been in the making for months. 

There were about 26,000 Iraqis in Germany by the end of October 2023 who technically were required to leave the country, according to Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Interior. In 2022, however, only 77 people in total were deported directly to Iraq.