The Philippines Embassy in the UAE has advised its nationals not to go to Kish in Iran or Buraimi in Oman,
Mohsin Iraj, a harried front-desk staffer at Farabi Hotel 1, picks up a bundle of passports, most of them belonging to Filipinos and a couple of green-coloured ones of Bangladeshis, and starts counting them. "Thirteen", he says finally. "These people do not have any money, they cannot pay for their room. What can we do?" he asks.
At an internet cafein the hotel sits a young Filipina chatting with someone, and crying. She said the agency told her that her visa application was rejected in Dubai. She has been on the island for 33 days.
Exploitation by men
Her daily expenses are Dh35. She said her boyfriend is helping her. Other Filipinos said that many of these so-called boyfriends start pimping for these girls who are desperate to get a foot in the door to the job market in the UAE.
Stranded 'Kabayans' send out appeal
She is the friendly face people turn to when in distress
Stranded on Kish Island
She says she cannot tell her family back home of her predicament. "My father recently had a stroke. The tension is too much," she said, sobbing.
Irina Santos came to Dubai also looking for work and has landed up at Kish for a visa extension. "My last job was at the Sheraton Hotel," she says. "I worked there for two years."
She said as her money is running out, all she does now is sleep in her room.
"Every day I call and ask what happened to my visa," she said. Asked whether all this trouble is worth it, she said, "Yes. I have a baby back home and she is studying. I need work."
The UAE needs a huge workforce to man its various sectors, from services and retail to manufacturing, construction and the IT industry. Many of these sectors were earlier manned by workers on a visit visa. Companies preferred to hire them as they came cheap and they did not have to give them other benefits which regular workers are given.
But that led to a flood of people without proper papers. To stop that the authorities recently changed the visa rules and said that residents can no longer bring in their friends or other relatives on a visit visa. Only very close relatives, such as parents, can be brought into the country on a visit visa now.
Nothing changed
It also extended tourist visas to other nationalities such as from the sub-continent. It stopped travel agencies from applying for visit visas and gave them permission to only apply for tourist visas. Under the new rules, those who wish to extend their tourist visa have to leave the country for 30 days. The new visa rules went into effect this July.
While all this was done presumably to boost tourism and stop illegal workers flooding the into country, nothing much has really changed over the past few years since Gulf News earlier visited Kish Island.
For a while after the new rules were announced, the number of people coming to Kish for a visa change dropped. Then it was back to business as usual.
Rahim Golestani is the station manager at Kish. He says Kish Air runs between three to 10 flights every day from Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi.
"Some passengers are Iranian businessmen, but most passengers come here for 'visa change,'" he said.
The airline runs a shuttle service with a fleet of turbo-prop Fokker-50s which has a passenger load of 48. It also runs a McDonnell Douglas which can carry 160 passengers.
Iran Air and Aseman also runs similar visa runs to Kish and other tiny island called Qhesm. The manager said the airline was not informed about the change in visa rules.
"That would be a big problem if people have to stay away for 30 days," he said, apparently hearing of the rules for the first time.
Abbas Omidvarnia, an executive from the Kish Free Zone Organisation, said the 'visa changers' do not contribute anything to the economy of the island, which thrives on the 1.2 million tourists every year from mainland Iran.
Insight: Pricey advice
The Philippines Embassy in the UAE has advised its nationals not to go to Kish in Iran or Buraimi in Oman, for a visa change, saying that it is better to go to the Philippines and wait for the visa.
But that advice has fallen on deaf ears as many feel the cost of going home is prohibitive.
It costs just Dh500 for a ticket to Kish and even less for a bus trip package to Oman.
Do you know anyone who is stranded in Kish on a visa run? How has their life been affected? How can the issue be resolved?
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