Below is a beautiful short story first published by EGO Magazine and re-posted here with permission from the author.
Archive for the ‘UAE’ Category
UAE: Thousands of Laborers Left to Fend for Themselves
July 23rd, 2010
As the global financial crisis hit UAE derailing its real-estate boom, several construction companies that employ foreign workers went bankrupt. As a result, many times the workers are deserted in their over-populated labor camps that are cut off from basic utilities, without any money and the abili...
Emirati paper: UAE “unfairly” targeted for migrant rights abuses
June 15th, 2010
Sponsorship UAE Working conditions
A recent editorial in Gulf News, the UAE’s most popular English-language newspaper, lavishly praised the UAE’s treatment of migrant workers, ignoring the egregious human rights violation migrant workers are subjected to in the Emirates. The editorial highlighted the International Labor O...
Interview with a photojournalist who helped reveal the conditions of migrants in the UAE
June 10th, 2010
UAE Workers Working conditions
Below is an interview we conducted with Matilde Gattoni, a photojournalist who has spent a year documenting the living and working condition of migrant construction workers in the UAE. A gallery of the amazing photos can be seen on her site. First, could you introduce yourself to our readers? I’m ...
Pope Praises the UAE for ‘Openness’ to Migrants
May 27th, 2010
The Pope commended the UAE for its ‘openness’ towards foreign workers, many of whom are Catholic Filippinos, on the occasion of receiving the UAE’s first ambassador to the Vatican (full story here). It seems a shame that this occasion has not triggered more discussion about the abu...
Dubai Arrests 100 Vietnamese Protestors
May 27th, 2010
Police in Dubai arrested around 100 Vietnamese construction workers for going on strike over unpaid wages earlier this month (full article here) The workers formed part of a group of 200 workers of various nationalities who marched to the Ministry of Labour to demand their rights. Those who were tak...
Migrant Domestic Workers in the Middle East: Exploited, Abused and Ignored
April 30th, 2010
Abusive employers Bahrain Housemaids Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Legislation Racism Rape Saudi Arabia Sponsorship Suicide Trafficking UAE Working conditions
A new Human Rights Watch (HRW) report about the rights of migrant domestic workers focused heavily on the Middle East, and for a good reason: most regional governments do not include domestic workers under the protection of its labor laws, and the current regulations leave domestic workers open to e...
Bill Clinton Claims the UAE Passed Legislation Giving Migrants “a Better Deal”
April 24th, 2010
Housemaids Sponsorship UAE Working conditions
In a recent interview to ABC’s “This Week” former US President Bill Clinton claimed that the UAE passed laws to give “imported workers… a better deal”. This statement is wrong on many levels, moral and factual. Here is the full quote (emphasis ours): The — ...
The Gilded Cage: Syed Ali on the UAE and Migrant Labour
April 4th, 2010
Leading UK daily The Times recently ran this article Dubai: Gilded Cage, reviewing sociologist Syed Ali’s new book of the same name on the paradoxes of life in Dubai. Ali digs beneath the surface of ‘brand Dubai’ to examine the lives of the people who make up the Emirate’s p...
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