The accidental death of a young man on a building site has been held out as a sign of the way migrant workers are treated in the construction industry.
“You survived the cruelty of the desert and the sea only to die at the hands of men!” a friend said in an impassioned address during an event to celebrate the life of Diedy Coulibaly, a 23-year-old from Mali.
Mr Coulibaly’s friend, Abraham Livingston, was speaking to a small crowd who gathered at the John XXIII Peace Laboratory on Sunday for the celebration. The young migrant, who was living at the Peace Lab, died after falling four storeys while working on the construction site of a new school in St Paul’s Bay last June.
Mr Livingstone said migrant workers in the construction industry were often put to work with no safety equipment and offered paltry wages in return.
He called upon his friend’s spirit to look upon these workers as they tried to make a living from such precarious employment.
Despite their contributions to society, he said, there was resistance to seeing migrants integrate into the larger community.
“As you rest with the angels, pray for us to God because we’re just trying to live and we don’t know who will be next,” Mr Livingstone said.
“We contribute to the economy of this country. We build their houses, their mansions and their roads, but they still find problems with giving us safety equipment.
“We know someone somewhere isn’t happy about our presence here, but you’ll have to excuse us because you wouldn’t find the jobs that we’re doing for you here acceptable.”
Mr Livingstone closed off by saying he hoped that Mr Coulibaly’s death would serve as a reminder that there were still many human beings who needed to be better protected at their workplace. Ħal Far Peace Lab founder Fr Dionysius Mintoff said such young men were sometimes put to work in dangerous situations without the most basic of safety equipment, such as hard hats, safety shoes or even work gloves.
“Serious incidents on construction sites, even fatal ones, are on the increase, and very little is being done about it. Even the most basic safety standards are being ignored and going unreported,” Fr Mintoff said.
Many migrants looking for work encountered exploitative situations, not just through lack of safety standards but through the appalling wages on offer, with some contractors offering as little as €5 for an entire day’s work, he claimed.
According to statistics collected by the Occupational Health and Safety Authority, construction site-related accidents and injuries have tapered off after peaking in 2014.
Mr Coulibaly had been in Malta for some three years, aiming to join his brother who lives in France.
He had found steady work in construction and was supporting his mother in Mali.
For some months he had been living among the community at the Peace Lab, where some of his closest friends gathered to celebrate his life and memory.
“It was a privilege to know you, we were a wonderful family, not just friends,” Mr Livingstone said during the service.