Last Friday, over 3,000 migran workers at a factory in the Emirati city of Ras Al Khaimah were detained for rioting. The workers, incited by the poor quality of food they were provided with, wreaked havoc in the factory and burnt nearby vehicles, before riot police were brought in from the nearby Emirate of Dubai.
Although [...]
With employers frequently abusing their rights, a legal system that ensures them no protection and rights groups that aren’t , the situation of domestic migrant workers in Lebanon is very bleak.
“I have only six months left and then I will go back to the Congo,” says Angelique, speaking to IRIN from across the balcony [...]
Unfortunately, due to recent events in Bahrain, many people seem to agree with the decision to ban visas for incoming Bangladeshis. However, this action is only due to an exaggerated stereotype, a claim that Bangladeshi civilians must be “murderous” due to several Bangladeshi workers who committed horrid crimes in the past few years, which of [...]
ABU DHABI — The Filipina housemaid E.F., who jumped from the second floor in an attempt to escape from her employer told investigators that she was trying to run away because she was over-worked and wanted to seek a better job.
The Abu Dhabi Police have referred the case to the Public Prosecution for appropriate action [...]
ABU DHABI — A 40-year-old Filipina housemaid suffered serious injuries and was admitted to a hospital after she fell from the second floor of a building in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.
A police official who did not want to be named told Khaleej Times the maid was apparently trying to escape from the apartment of [...]
From the BBC -
Darmianti binti Jaba Saleh only realised where she was when she pulled out the pile of money she had been given.
Written across the top of the notes were the words “Bank of Iraq”.
Darmianti was having her medical check-up prior to being placed as a domestic worker in the Kurdish north of Iraq.
The [...]
According to the AP -
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Oil-rich Gulf nations, already facing labor protests, are getting new pressure from India, which wants them to pay minimum wages for unskilled workers.
The move by India — which has 5 million workers in the Gulf, making it the largest source of migrants — is the [...]
According to an article in the LA Times concerning modern slavery:
One hot june day in 2006, I saw what slavery really meant. In a rundown mansion in a slum of Bucharest, Romania, a pimp offered to sell me a young woman he described as “a blond.” She had bleached hair, hastily applied makeup, and she [...]
From the Wall Street Journal (and via The Emirates Economist blog) -
SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates — Protests and violent skirmishes over rising prices are hitting parts of the Middle East, a region already beset by strife but otherwise enjoying an unprecedented, oil-fueled economic boom.
On Tuesday, hundreds of workers demanding higher wages to counter soaring food [...]
From the AFP:
MANAMA (AFP) — Around 1,300 migrant workers helping to build a luxury coastal development in Bahrain have gone on strike to demand higher wages, a company official said on Sunday.
The workers are employed by the contracting firm GP Zachariades to work on the Durrat al-Bahrain development in the south of the wealthy Gulf [...]