Bahrain has postponed the implementation of a ban on the dangerous practice of transporting construction workers to and from work in open trucks after protests from private companies. The ban was meant to come into effect on January 1st 2009, but was shouted down by businessmen who claimed that the cost of transporting workers in [...]
Abuses of migrant labourers and domestic staff were discussed openly at the last round of the Doha Debates on November 17th, where the audience voted 75% in favour of a motion that ‘Gulf Arabs value profit over people’. Ex-BBC correspondent and former Hard Talk host Tim Sebastian chaired a frank and heated discussion on [...]
I recently wrote about how impressed I was with the “Rahma” campaign, aired on Arab television and in support of migrant workers within the region who are often mistreated. Seeing as we have been running a website for Migrant Rights in the Middle East, which is also the first regional website of its kind, I [...]
A recent great article in Arab News highlights a great ad campaign for migrant workers:
JEDDAH: The abuse of workers in the Kingdom, as reported by several human rights groups, has prompted a Saudi advertisement agency boss to launch a series of TV advertisements to encourage people to show mercy.
“We wanted to give people something to [...]
We have written previously about the poor working conditions and lack of safety for migrant construction workers in the Gulf. It was such working conditions that unfortunately led to the death of 3 workers in Bahrain: Anil Kumar (India), Badala Raju (India), and Kamal Amin Sharif (Bangladesh).
The following scan from Gulf Daily News provides [...]
A disturbing article from IRIN News:
AMMAN, 10 September 2008 (IRIN) - A lawsuit in a US court over the alleged involvement of a Jordanian company in human trafficking has forced the Jordanian government to act against the practice.
The Ministry of Interior has formed committees to draft legislation banning trafficking and to investigate conditions of foreign [...]
In a recently released report, Human Rights Watch stated that every week, more than one domestic worker dies due to unnatural reasons in Lebanon.
“Domestic workers are dying in Lebanon at a rate of more than one per week,” said Nadim Houry, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “All those involved – from the Lebanese authorities, [...]
In July 2006, a blaze at a labour camp in Gudaibiya left 16 Indian workers dead. The workers were made to live in a squalid, overcrowded camp, with outrageously poor facilities. Not only were appropriate safety measures ignored, but the windows were sealed shut, limiting the workers’ means of escape.
Angered, the 200 surviving workers took [...]
Every summer in the UAE (where temperatures can reach a staggering 50 degrees Celsius), doctors brace themselves to receiving hundreds of patients suffering from heat exhaustion. Many of the workers, originating from countries where the climate is not as harsh, lose their lives.
Although the Ministry of Labour has enforced a nation-wide summer mid-day break [...]
In what could be the one of the worst cases of poor accommodation ever reported in the UAE, over 200 labourers in the Emirati city of Dubai were discovered to be living in cardboard boxes for over three months. Their plight was only discovered after the worker’s refusal to work last weekend, in protest against [...]