How Labour Law Fails to Protect Human Rights of Migrant Construction Workers ______A Thesis Submitted for the Master Degree International Law and Global Governance

Home , Kafala system

Modern-day slavery in the United Arab Emirates: How labour law fails to protect human rights of migrant construction workers ______A Thesis submitted for the Master Degree International Law and Global Governance

Student: Maximilian Felix Kirchhoff ANR: 510395 SNR: 1269967

Supervisor: Dr. D.H. Augenstein Second reader: Ms. D. Heerdt Tilburg University, Tilburg Law School Word Count: 13226

Date of submission: June 13, 2019

Table of Contents ______

Foreword and Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………….. 3 Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………………… 4 List of abbreviations ………………………………………………………………………… 5

1. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………….…..… 6 1.1 Labour Migration to the UAE in a historical context …………………………………... 6

1.2 Structure of the thesis …………………………………………………………....……… 9

1.3 Methodology and Sources ………………………………………...……………………. 11

2. The Kafala sponsorship system …………………………..……………………...... … 13 2.1 Functioning of the Kafala sponsorship system ……….………………………………... 13 2.2 Abuses under the Kafala sponsorship system …………………...………………..……. 16 2.3 Exploitative working conditions …………………………………………………...…… 18

3. Analysis of the legislative framework regulating migrant workers ………………… 22

3.1 Federal Law No. 8 of 1980 Regarding the Organization of Labour Relations ………… 22

3.1.1 Substantive rights …………………………………………….…………….… 22 3.1.2 Supervisory mechanisms ………………………………………….………….. 28

3.2 International and regional human rights instruments ……..…………………………… 30 3.2.1 Forced Labour Convention of 1930 ……………………………………..….... 30

3.2.2 Hours of Work Convention of 1919 ………………………………………….. 31

3.2.3 Arab Charter on Human Rights …………………………………….………… 32

4. Comparison with international human rights standards ….……...……………….… 33

4.1 Working and living conditions ……....……………….……………………………...... 33

4.2 Right to form trade unions …………………………………………………….………... 35

4.3 Right to strike …………………………….…………………………….………………. 37

5. Economic exploitation of migrant workers and its incentives …………………….… 39

5.1. Vulnerability of migrant workers and their social status in the UAE ……………….… 39

6. Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………….……… 42

7. Bibliography …………………………………………………………………….……... 47

Foreword and Acknowledgements

This thesis deals with the abuse of migrant construction workers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and is intended to explain the failure of the domestic labour law regime in protecting human rights of those workers. It is written as a completion to the Master program International Law and Global Governance at Tilburg University and constitutes the final thesis of my one- year study.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my supervisor, Dr. Augenstein, Associate Professor at Tilburg University for his valuable feedback that helped me to adjust and finalize this thesis. At last, I would also like to thank my family and friends that encouraged and supported me in the process of writing this thesis.

Abstract

The thesis takes the form of a socio-legal study and uses the case of the UAE to illustrate what type of exploitation migrant construction workers encounter and to determine how the labour law responds to this mistreatment. This thesis entails a critical analysis of the legal framework of the UAE labour law system and examines its effectiveness in safeguarding human rights of those workers. This is done by investigating the current regulatory framework, consisting of the Kafala sponsorship system, the core labour law and international human rights conventions.

The results of this thesis find that the legislation in place, both on a domestic and international level is sufficient in addressing human rights abuses, but that its lack of enforcement, based on an ineffective control mechanism and the absence of trade unions principally facilitates the continuation of abusive practices, systematic economic exploitation, discrimination based on the social status of migrant workers and forced labour that are widely tolerated by the state. Ultimately, these findings reinforce that the problems the migrant construction workers face are not based on an incomplete legal system, but the power imbalance and dependency between their employers that the Kafala sponsorship system creates.

List of abbreviations

ACHR Arab Charter on Human Rights

AED United Arab Emirates Dirham

GCC Gulf Cooperation Council

ICCPR International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights

ICESCR International Covenant for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

ICRMW International Convention on the Protection on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families

ILO International Labour Organization

UAE United Arab Emirates

UDHR Universal Declaration of Human Rights

UN United Nations

USD US-Dollar

WPS Wage Protection System

1. Introduction

1.1 Labour Migration to the UAE in a historical context

Before the UAE was founded in 1971 and oil was discovered that resulted in the economic growth, the Southeastern part of the Arabian Peninsula flourished as a center of trade with neighbouring Persia and merchants from the Indian subcontinent.1 Already in the 19th century, labour migration characterized this region, whereas the coast along the Persian Gulf was famous for its pearl diving industry that attracted many seasonal workers from nearby countries.2 The region itself, which was a British protectorate that was governed by the so-called Trucial States, a confederation of tribal factions, was hardly populated and thus very dependent on migrant workers for its economic development.

By the early 1930’s, the prospering pearl industry started to collapse, following the world-wide Great Depression that damaged the economy for the next 20 years.3 Starting in the 1950’s, other Arab countries, such as Saudi-Arabia and what is known today as Qatar, discovered large oil reserves that brought high revenues and wealth to the once crumbling region. Similarly, oil was found in the Trucial States and pushed for a transformation from a regional trade port towards an industrialized and global trade center.

The problems the ruling tribal leaders were confronted with was that the domestic population was small in size and did not have the skills these development and modernization plans required.4 As a result, this workforce deficit was outbalanced by introducing immigration policies, which led to a rapid increase of migrant workers that were allowed to enter this country for temporary stay and work.

1 F. De Bel-Air (July 2015) ''Demography, Migration, and the Labour Market in the UAE'' p. 3-4, Available at: http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/36375/GLMM_ExpNote_07_2015.pdf - (Accessed: February 25, 2019)

2 S. Hamza (April 2015) ''Migrant Labor in the Arabian Gulf: A Case Study of Dubai'' p. 82-83 - Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at the University of Tennessee: Vol. 6: Issuance 1, Article 10, Available at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1244 &context=pursuit - (Accessed: February 25, 2019)

3 See 2 – p. 103

4 See 2 – p. 82 6

Especially in the construction industry, the demand for labour was high and firstly compensated by the employment of migrant workers from neighbouring Arab countries. These workers came from Iraq, Yemen and Egypt and were welcome due to their cultural and linguistic similarities that simplified the immigration process. Nevertheless, during the rise of the Trucial States as an economic power, the Middle East became politically unstable that brought protests and particularly nationalist and anti-colonial agendas into the political forum.5

The Trucial States, which were at that time informally ruled by a colonial power turned into a venue for pan-Arabism movements that was promoted by its diverse Arab migrant population. Essentially, this ideology strived for the unification of all Arab countries into a single nation with a redistribution of oil and wealth throughout the Arab world.6 These movements brought volatility into the region, hampering its economic development, which made these people a political concern and security issue, rather than an economic asset.7

Consequently, the majority of Arab migrant workers formerly employed were expelled and replaced by Asian migrant workers that accepted lower wages, were more flexible and more importantly, they constituted less of a threat to the political landscape.8 A large number of those Asian migrant workers came from poor countries in Southeast Asia, like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh that were driven by growing unemployment and poverty in their home countries to migrate and send remittances to their families.

As the growing oil industry produced more wealth, the government expanded its infrastructure in the urban areas and initiated large-scale projects, which accelerated a construction boom that required even larger number of construction workers. Nowadays, the construction sector contributes to 8.4% of the GDP and employs roughly 900.000 migrant workers.9 10 Remarkably, the UAE recorded an extensive labour migration and has become the host to one

5 See 2 – p. 83-84

6 See 2 – p. 83-84

7 H. Thiollet (November 8, 2018) ''Migration as Diplomacy: Labor Migrants, Refugees, and Arab Regional Politics in the Oil-Rich Countries'' p. 9, Available at: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01675531/document - (Accessed: April 2, 2019)

8 See 2 - p. 84

9 (May 19, 2009) ''The Island of Happiness: Exploitation of Migrant Workers on Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi'' p. 23, Available at: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/uae0509web_4.pdf - (Accessed: April 4, 2019)

10 ''Economy'', Available at: https://www.government.ae/en/about-the-uae/economy - (Accessed: April 4, 2019)

7 of the largest migrant stocks in the world, whereas 90% of the resident population consists of migrant workers, while only 10% are UAE nationals.11

In regulating the migration process, the UAE government employs the so-called Kafala sponsorship system, which is the only tool for migrant workers to enter the country and take up work. This system requires that each migrant is advocated by a sponsor to obtain a visa and work permit. Although its aim is to monitor labour migration, it creates a power imbalance and enables employers to exercise strict control over the workers.

This results in migrant workers being mistreated and abused under working conditions that differ distinctively from those of UAE nationals and with no enforcement of any labour rights. Common practices by employers include excessive working hours, the withholding of wages and confiscation of identity documents, all which are practices that conflict with the existent labour law and obligations under international human rights law.

11 R. Hassan (April 24, 2018) ''The UAE’s Unsustainable Nation Building'', Available at: https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/uaes-unsustainable-nation-building - (Accessed: April 7, 2019)

1.2 Structure of the thesis

My research is focused on migrant workers that are employed in the UAE construction industry. The overreaching aim of this thesis is to explore the legal and regulatory aspects of the UAE labour law framework that applies to these migrant workers and to ascertain whether and to what extent the practices that occur throughout the recruitment process and employment are in violation of them and how they conform to international human rights standards.

Furthermore, this thesis aims to address potential factors that explain why human rights of migrant workers are sidelined, reflecting upon financial incentives, the social status and vulnerability of low-skilled workers in the UAE.

To achieve this aim, the following research questions were formulated and will be answered throughout this thesis:

1. What exploitative practices do migrant workers encounter in the UAE construction industry?

2. Does the UAE Labour law address, facilitate or prevent these practices?

3. How is the difference in the treatment of migrant construction workers justified?

In order to answer these research questions, this thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter, after presenting the methods I used to conduct my research, will introduce the Kafala sponsorship system. This system will be studied for its functioning and how it specifically enables the exploitation of migrant workers. This includes an examination of its inception, the role of recruitment agencies and the working and living conditions it creates under abusive employers, specifically pointing to the confiscation of passports, the partial or non-payment of wages and the environment in which migrant construction workers have to work.

In light of these practices, the next chapter is devoted to the Federal Labour Law in the UAE and will focus on the regulation of recruitment agencies, rights of workers, obligations of employers and its supervisory mechanisms, taking into consideration whether it addresses these practices. Lastly, this chapter looks at obligations arising out of international law, with a reference to two selected ILO conventions and a regional human rights instrument the UAE is a party to that deal with labour-related issues. More specifically, this section involves the Forced Labour Convention of 1930, the Hours of Work Convention of 1919 and the ACHR and its provisions will be examined with regards to the working conditions migrant workers endure.

Additionally, in the following chapter, the working and living conditions, the right to form trade unions and the right to strike will be discussed and compared with various international human rights standards. Hereby, the ICCPR, ICESCR, UDHR and ICRMW will be referred to, in order to demonstrate to what extent the treatment of migrant construction workers align with these international human rights standards. Moreover, relating to the right to form trade unions and the right to strike, it will be evaluated whether the absence of these rights aggravate the exploitation of migrant workers and what the relevance of these rights is in the enforcement of labour rights.

Finally, the last chapter addresses the role of migrant construction workers in the hierarchy of the UAE society and whether the pursuit of profit has undermined the obligation of the government to respect, promote and protect human rights of particularly low-skilled workers. In particular, this chapter will point to the economic development as catalyst for the exploitation of cheap labour and touch upon the interplay between globalization, labour migration and economic exploitation in determining reasons that substantiate why the abuse of migrant workers continues to take place.

Afterwards, the last chapter will be used to summarize my findings, answer the research questions and draw a conclusion.

1.3 Methodology and Sources

The following section of this chapter aims to present the methodology and introduce the research strategy for this thesis. The purpose of this section is to describe the data collection process and the limitations that I encountered during the research.

In undertaking the analysis to answer the research questions, this thesis utilized legal research and relies mainly on qualitative data that is derived from secondary sources. Due to the theoretical nature of the topic and research questions, these sources include official legal documents, academic journals and reports from governmental, as well as non-governmental institutions.

The outset of this analysis was to find information regarding the functioning of the Kafala sponsorship system, what challenges migrant construction workers encounter following its implication and how it facilitates the abuse of migrant workers. First and foremost, it is important to point out that there is a vast amount of literature that deals with the subject of migrant workers and the Kafala sponsorship system in the UAE. More specifically, the available publications involve many different stakeholders that have reported over working conditions, exploitation and the development of labour migration from the early 2000’s until today.

Notably, the majority of literature was published by human rights organizations and newspapers, but these sources did not constitute a reliable source for my thesis. Often, the available literature regarding migrant workers in the UAE is comparative and takes the situation of labour migration in the neighbouring Gulf countries with a significant migrant population into consideration. Furthermore, these publications were generally restricted to statistics and broad insights, rather than detailed information. These were one-sided, biased and especially critical without sufficient accuracy, argumentation or references.

Although most of the literature summarized what challenges migrant workers face, the information was frequently linked to migrant workers in general, rather than related to one specific sector. This included for example domestic workers employed in private households or migrant workers that are employed in retail, transport or other services. However, as this thesis is focused on one particular sector, namely the construction industry, it was difficult to find literature that dealt with construction workers only that was supplemented with accurate and non-biased information on which I could base my arguments on.

This limitation is also attributed to the fact that international organizations, journalists and especially human rights activists have little to no access in obtaining information surrounding migrant construction workers. The UAE currently ranks 133 out of 180 in the World Press Freedom Index, whereas the government has systematically blocked representatives of human rights organizations from entering the country. Likewise, those journalists and human rights activists within the country that report negatively over human rights violations and criticize the government are punished with harsh prison sentences. In that regard, working conditions of migrant workers has become a sensitive topic among the UAE government that dismissed claims of human rights abuses, but declines to uncover the situation transparently.

For this reason, visits to construction or housing sites of migrant workers are held under strict supervision too, which limits the amount of reliable information from primary sources. Consequently, since the number of nongovernmental organizations is relatively small in this country, the amount of extensive reports with detailed information is comparatively low. Another limitation is that employers often refuse to document or report numbers of accidents, deaths or other violations of labour laws on construction sites, which restricts the access to these information.

To overcome this limitation, I centered my research on scientific and legal search engines to access academic journals throughout which I could filter the wealth of information. In this respect, I could narrow down my research towards migrant construction workers only. In comparison to reports of newspapers and human rights organizations, academic journals provide more detailed information, are more elaborative and were very useful in tracing the development of labour migration in the UAE, the structure of the Kafala sponsorship system and what exploitative practices migrant construction workers encounter. With this foundation, I could proceed to the analysis of the labour law, whereas legal documents, including the Federal Labour Law and ministerial decrees were easily accessible and available in the English language.

Therefore, engaging in this field of social science and law is connected with several challenges and requires a lot of caution. Many of the sources that deal with this topic are held comparatively general and the amount of this type of information makes it difficult to find appropriate information. Primarily, academic journals are the only mean that present a viable source to find relevant and well-grounded information.

2. The Kafala sponsorship system

2.1 Functioning of the Kafala sponsorship system

The starting point for labour migration to the UAE is the so-called Kafala system that has its historical roots in Bedouin traditions and loosely translates as sponsorship system in Arabic. In its original form, it was built on tribal values of hospitality and generosity and was a custom that provided temporary protection and affiliation with a tribe for strangers that crossed their lands.12 Also, it was employed in the pearl diving industry, whereas fishers would sponsor pearl divers each season that were granted temporary residence for their work.

Following the foundation of the UAE and the rapid influx of migrant workers in the region, this tradition was acquired and institutionalized among all GCC countries to control labour migration.13 Nowadays, it constitutes the legal basis for residency and employment and is intended to quickly recruit migrant workers and to send them back if their service is no longer needed. The basic idea behind the Kafala system is that each migrant worker, independent of the private sector or nature of work the migrant will be employed at, requires an in-country sponsor, usually their employer, who is responsible for administering their visa and residency, as well as labour-related matters, such as the payment of wages and ensuring the health and safety of the workers.14

In the UAE, the element of sponsorship is laid down in the domestic law and is regulated under Federal Law No. 6 of 1973 Concerning Immigration and Residence, as amended by Federal Law No. 13 of 1996 Concerning Aliens Entry and Residence. Under Article 34 of this law, it is illegal to employ an alien that is not under the sponsorship of the employer. Furthermore, there are strict requirements as to who is eligible as sponsor. According to Article 11, only Emirati individuals and establishments that are registered with the Ministry of Labour are allowed to

12 (September 2014) ''The Kafala: Research on the Impact and Relation of the Sponsorship System to Migrant Labor Bondage in GCC Countries'' p. 25 , Available at: https://www.apmigrants.org/articles/publications/Featured%20Researches/Kafala%20Research%202014- FINAL.pdf - (Accessed: April 16, 2019)

13 The GCC countries include Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the UAE

14 (October 2014) ''I Already Bought You: Abuse and Exploitation of Female Migrant Domestic Workers in the United Arab Emirates'' p. 18-19 , Available at: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/uae1014_forUpload.pdf - (Accessed: April 19, 2019)

13 act as sponsor. Once the requirement of an eligible sponsor is fulfilled, a residence permit can be granted for a maximum duration of three years that can be extended upon its expiry.15

What distinguishes the Kafala sponsorship system is that the state delegates the authority of the documentation and regulation of migrant workers directly to the sponsor that takes legal and economic responsibility throughout the employment. This includes that employers have to pay recruitment fees through subcontractors, visa administration fees at the Ministry of Labour and an airline ticket for migrants to travel from their home country to the UAE and vice versa.16

More specifically, under the Kafala system, the employment relationship is completely dependent upon the employer, as the entry, departure and the transfer to another employer within the UAE requires the consent of the sponsor. In addition, the sponsor has the authority to terminate the residency of the migrant at any time, which ties the migrant to the sponsor and creates a structural dependency for the continuation of the employment relationship.17 Consequently, if the sponsor retracts the sponsorship, the right to residency is terminated and the migrant will be considered as illegal immigrant that could be arrested and deported.

The resulting problem out of the basic idea of the Kafala system and the associated transfer of this responsibility is that the state trusts the sponsor to adhere to the labour law, but at the same time, the state surrenders its fundamental competence, namely to control and oversee working conditions to a private person or corporation that is not necessarily interested in its compliance, but possibly more willing to discard rights of migrant workers for an economic gain.

Initially, the purpose of transferring the responsibility to private entities is justified by reducing the burden on the state in regulating immigration.18 Despite its aim to lessen the bureaucracy on the state level, the transfer of responsibility towards individuals or establishments that take over full control over the legal status of migrant workers entails a significant power asymmetry.

15 Article 17 – Federal Law No. 13 of 1996 Concerning Aliens Entry and Residence

16 See 12 – p. 27

17 ''Policy Brief No. 2: Reform of The Kafala (Sponsorship) System'', Available at: https://www.ilo.org/dyn/migpractice/docs/132/PB2.pdf - (Accessed: April 24, 2019)

18 K. Al-Ghanim (September 2015) ''Kafala System Remains Resilient in the GCC by Kaltham Al-Ghanim'' p. 3 , Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282024272_Kafala_System_Remains_Resilient_in_the_GCC_by_ Kaltham_Al-Ghanim - (Accessed: April 24, 2019)

Nockerts indicates that this asymmetric relationship grants the sponsor the same power of an immigration official, which induces migrant workers to adhere and endure anything that the employer demands.19 As the migrant workers escape the poor economic situation and unemployment in their home countries for the benefit of remittances that their family’s existence is dependent upon, these migrants accept their precarious position and obey rather than protest against any injustice to secure their only source of income.

Therefore, the migrant falls under the leniency of the employer that is able to exploit the weak position, in order to achieve economic success. Based on the fact that an employer can easily enforce a deportation, poor working conditions and any practices that constitute a violation of existing rights are rarely addressed on behalf of the migrant workers.

As a result, since the employer can threaten the non-renewal of a contract or the withdrawal of the residency, the employer has the ability to force migrants to work under poor working conditions. In this respect, Mahdavi describes the Kafala system as ‘‘the largest challenge facing migrant workers in the UAE’’ (Mahdavi, 2011), because it favors employers, creates exploitative working conditions and does not protect the workers.20 Even though the migrant workers fall under the UAE labor law that prohibits exploitative practices, migrant workers continue to be treated as disposable economic commodity, whereas laws to their benefit are merely enforced and the government has refused to reform this system.

19 R. A. Nockerts (January 1, 2015) ''Toward a Global Human Rights Regime for Temporary Migrant Workers: Lessons from the Case of Filipino Workers in the United Arab Emirates'' p. 80, Available at: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1477&context=etd - (Accessed: April 25, 2019)

20 P. Mahdavi (April 13, 2011) ''Gridlock: Labor, Migration, and Human Trafficking in Dubai'', Trafficking Trafficking p. 26, 1st edition. , Stanford University Press, Stanford

2.2 Abuses under the Kafala sponsorship system

Even before the employment relationship is initiated and the migrant workers enter the UAE, they are already subject to exploitation in the sending countries through recruitment agencies that act as intermediary between the employer and the workers. Hereby, the recruitment agency constitutes a subagent in the connection that advertises job openings and carries out the admission process.

Often, these agencies falsify information about the terms of the contract and deceit prospective workers with high wages, attractive working conditions and other benefits to lure them for a potential takeover.21 22 This provides an additional source of income for the recruitment agencies, as they charge the migrants substantial fees for the arrangement of the contract, travel costs to the UAE, job training, insurance and other hidden costs with prices that range between 2000 and 3000 USD.23 A sum that migrant workers, especially from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh cannot afford.

This induces migrant workers to borrow money, mortgage or sell their properties, in case they are not able to compensate the costs. In addition, it is possible to accept a loan from the recruitment agency that is connected with a high interest rate that spans over the whole employment duration, making the migrant workers highly indebted, prior to their arrival in the UAE.24

This form of debt-bondage leaves migrants in no position to negotiate the terms of the contract, but to accept the conditions that are dictated by the employer.25 Also, the contracts the migrant workers have signed in the sending countries do not constitute their final contract. Once the migrants enter the UAE, they are required to sign a new contract upon arrival that is exchanged

21 F. Malit, G. Naufal (May 2016) ''Asymmetric Information under the Kafala Sponsorship System: Impacts on Foreign Domestic Workers’ Income and Employment Status in the GCC Countries'' p. 5, Available at: http://ftp.iza.org/dp9941.pdf - (Accessed: May 4, 2019)

22 See 9 – p. 4

23 O. Chidiac (December 17, 2014) ''Migrant Construction and Domestic Workers in the Arab Gulf States: Modern - Day Slaves? '' p. 63 , Available at: https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1015&context=llm - (Accessed: May 4, 2019)

24 See 2 – p. 87

25 (October 16, 2017) ''Migrant Workers’ Rights'', Available at: http://icfuae.org.uk/issues/migrant- workers%E2%80%99-rights - (Accessed: May 5, 2019)

16 with a different contract than the one concluded in the sending countries, which contains less favorable terms in comparison to what was promised by the recruitment agencies. In this respect, it was reported that migrant workers were not given any explanation regarding the contractual terms, nor a copy and that they were coerced to sign them and threatened to be deported back if they refused to do so.26

Furthermore, the contracts that are substituted are based on a model contract given by the Ministry of Labour that is written in the Arabic language, in order to be admissible and legally binding under UAE Labour Law.27 Notably, the majority of Southeast Asian migrant workers do not speak this language and the contracts are in many cases not translated into their native language. In that regard, it cannot be excluded that promises that have been made in the recruitment process are not identical to what they subsequently sign. Ultimately, this puts the migrant workers at a disadvantage, as they are not aware under what conditions they have to work, how long they have to work and how much money they are paid.

26 See 9 – p. 41 27 Article 2 – Federal Law No. 8 17

2.3 Exploitative working conditions

Arriving highly indebted in the UAE and unknowingly agreeing to unfair contracts makes migrant workers extremely vulnerable to exploitative practices that are threatened to be deported back, if they raise complaints about the contract substitution, debt-bondage and the false promises that were made in the sending countries.28 This compels migrant workers to stay and to continue working for an abusive employer.

One of the first and most common form of exploitation migrant construction workers encounter is the confiscation of identity documents by their employer for the entire duration of their stay.29 Employers justify this practice in preventing them from exiting the country or changing the employer, because they could lose their investment should the migrant leave.30 Moreover, under the Kafala system, the sponsor is held liable for migrants that abscond or swap the employer without their permission, resulting in hefty fines and the withdrawal of the license to recruit migrant workers.31 In turn, migrant workers that refuse to hand over their passport face fines, salary deductions or the termination of the contract by their employer.32

The Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, Joy Ngozi Ezeilo expressed that ‘‘the kafala system encourages the undesirable motivation for employers to confiscate passports’’ (Ezeilo, 2013), which situates migrants into a position where they become exposed to strict control and intimidation from their employer.33 In practice, by retaining passports, employers restrict the

28 A. Khan , H. Harroff-Tavel (September 1, 2011) ''Reforming the Kafala: Challenges and Opportunities in Moving Forward'' p. 298 - Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, Vol. 20, Nos.3-4, Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/011719681102000303 - (Accessed: May 10, 2019)

29 D. Keane, N. McGeehan (2008) ''Enforcing Migrant Workers’ Rights in the United Arab Emirates'' p. 88, 111 International Journal on Minority and Group Rights Vol. 15, Available at: https://www.upr- info.org/sites/default/files/document/united_arab_emirates/session_03_- _december_2008/mafiwasta_are_upr_s3_2008anx_enforcingmigrantworkersrightsintheunitedarabemirates.pdf - (Accessed: May 12, 2019)

30 See 17

31 (2013) ''Inter-Regional Report on Labour Migration and Social Protection'' p. 11, Available at: https://www.unescwa.org/file/31374/download?token=OZQTSBoW - (Accessed: May 12, 2019)

32 J. Sharma (July 17, 2017) ''Why are Migrant Workers' Passports still being held hostage in the UAE?'' , Available at: https://psmag.com/social-justice/why-are-migrant-workers-passports-still-being-held-hostage-in- uae - (Accessed: May 13, 2019)

33 J. N. Ezeilo (February 22, 2013) ''Report of the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, on her mission to the United Arab Emirates'' p.4 , Available at: https://www.refworld.org/cgibin/texis/vtx/rwmain/opendocpdf.pdf?reldoc=y&docid=51aefc344 - (Accessed: May 14, 2019)

18 freedom of movement within the country, the possibility to change the employer and inhibit the option to file a formal complaint in seeking justice.

In particular, employers exercise control over their movement in placing them into labour camps, which are monitored by security agencies that prevent migrants from leaving the compound. Furthermore, migrant workers are cramped with up to 10 people into small rooms without basic necessities, such as air conditioners, enough drinking water and electricity.34 In addition, these camps are equipped with insufficient sanitary systems with little showers, toilets and no sewage.35 For instance, in August 2008, it was underlined by UAE health authorities that 40 percent of all labour camps violated minimum health and fire safety standards and resulted in one case to the death of 11 construction workers in a fire that were housed in camps with blocked exits.36

Measures, such as renovations or improvements of the facilities are not carried out by the employers as they save costs, but these poor living conditions and low hygienic standards as well as no opportunity to leave the camps contributes to the acquisition and spread of diseases.37

Simultaneously, costs are saved on behalf of the employer in the non-payment for several months or partial payment of wages. With regards to that, withheld or low wages constitutes another common practice over which employers exploit migrant workers. Initially, the migrant workers are lured with wages up to 500 USD in the sending countries, but the final contract they have signed stipulates wages ranging from 150 to 200 USD, an income that is far under the average monthly income in the UAE, amounting to approximately 5000 USD.38

34 S. S. Amrith (February 23, 2011) ''Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia'', Asian Migrants in the Age of Globalization p. 165-166 1st edition, Cambridge University Press, New York

35 See 2 – p. 89-90

36 S. Hepburn, R. J. Simon (June 2013) Human Trafficking Around the World: Hidden in Plain Sight, The UAE as a Destination p. 65 1st edition, Columbia University Press, New York

37 (November 11, 2006) ''Building Towers, Cheating Workers Exploitation of Migrant Construction Workers in the United Arab Emirates'', Available at: https://www.hrw.org/report/2006/11/11/building-towers-cheating- workers/exploitation-migrant-construction-workers-united - (Accessed: May 15, 2019)

38 Sönmez, S. , Apostopoulos, Y. , Tran. D. , Rentrope, S. (August 20, 2013) ''Human rights and health disparities for migrant workers in the UAE'' - Health and Human Rights Journal 13/2, Available at: https://www.hhrjournal.org/2013/08/human-rights-and-health-disparities-for-migrant-workers-in-the-uae/ - (Accessed: 2019, May 17)

If the migrant workers do not receive their wages in their entirety or not at all, they are unable to pay off the debts they owe to the recruitment agencies and consequently incur additional interest. As a result, the debts increase further and they cannot send remittances to their families that depend on the income earned in the UAE and employers force migrant workers to stay beyond their contractual work period, solely for the purpose of repaying the debts.39 At the same time, the impact of low or withheld wages is significant for the migrant workers as well, because they have no resources to buy food or basic necessities.

Lastly, the working conditions in the construction area are poor and migrant workers are often forced to work overtime. First of all, it is important to note that the construction work takes place mainly outside, which exposes these workers to extreme climatic conditions with temperatures reaching up to 40°C and humidity levels of around 80 percent. In many cases, construction workers were forced to work excessively long, from 16 up to 21 hours per day with little safety requirements, which is detrimental to the health and leads to physical harm and mental stress under the hot weather.40 This is aggravated by inappropriate protective gear, limited access to drinking water and short rest-periods, which result in workplace accidents, deaths and heat-related illness, such as exhaustion and dehydration.

As an illustration, in 2004, 880 construction workers died mainly from work-related injuries and 5000 were brought to hospital for heat-related illness, specifically heat strokes during the months of July and August. 41 42 It was cited that employers did not provide safety measures to protect construction workers against occupational injuries and that workers were forced to remain on-site during a mandated break with no air conditioning or access to drinking water.

Next to the deaths on construction sites, a vast number of construction workers have committed suicide that are distressed from the working conditions and suffer under depression and

39 See 14 – p.5

40 See 38

41 K. Randeree ''Organisational Justice: Migrant Worker Perceptions in Organisations in the United Arab Emirates'' p. 62 - Journal of Business Systems, Governance and Ethics Vol. 3, No. 4 , Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kasim_Randeree/publication/287591433_Organisational_Justice_Migra nt_Worker_Perceptions_in_Organisations_in_the_United_Arab_Emirates/links/568bdd4c08ae129fb5cb8c09.pdf - (Accessed: May 17, 2019)

42 See 2 – p. 93

20 financial problems. With regards to that, it was reported by the Indian Embassy in the UAE that approximately 115 construction workers have committed suicide in 2010.43

Therefore, with the confiscation of passports, the placement in labour camps with low hygienic standards, scarce or withheld wages and excessive working hours where migrant workers are strictly controlled by their employer and are threatened with punishment in case of a refusal, these migrant construction workers are exposed to working conditions that align with slavery- like practices.

43 P. Menon, A. Abocar (June 2, 2011) ''Suicides shed light on darker side of Dubai's glitz'' , Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-emirates-labourers-suicide/suicides-shed-light-on-darker-side-of-dubais- glitz-idUSTRE7511GK20110602 - (Accessed: May 17, 2019)

3. Analysis of the legislative framework regulating migrant workers

3.1 Federal Law No. 8 of 1980 Regarding the Organization of Labour Relations

The consequences of these exploitative practices are drastic and migrant construction workers encounter these difficulties, largely because an effective enforcement of the applicable labour law is lacking. In practice, many of the challenges that migrant workers face constitute a severe violation of the labour law, but are tolerated among employers and the state.

To start with, all labour relations in the UAE are regulated by a federal legislation that applies to all emirates. The core part represents Federal Law No. 8 of 1980 Regarding the Organization of Labour Relations (hereafter referred to as Federal Law No.8) that is regularly supplemented by ministerial decrees and its provisions apply to both nationals and foreigners.44 Furthermore, the competence of the implementation of the labour laws lies with the Ministry of Labour that has agencies in each emirate to enforce the provisions.

At first glance, similar to Western and the most developed countries, this labour law contains extensive provisions regarding maximum working hours, safety standards, limitations on overtime, cleanliness on the work place and generally maintains high standards of worker protection that counters exploitative practices. In addition, it does not only determine the relationship between an employee and employer, but also regulates the actions of recruitment agencies.

3.1.1 Substantive rights

One important component of Federal Law No. 8 in this regard is Article 18. Article 18 stipulates that ‘‘it is not permissible for any licensed labour agent or supplier to demand or accept from any worker whether before or after his recruitment, any commission or material reward in consideration for arranging such recruitment.’’45

Besides that, this abolition of recruitment fees was reinforced by Ministerial resolution No. 1283 of 2010 Regarding the Licensing and Regulation of Private Recruitment Agencies. Under

44 With the exception of domestic workers, government officials, members of the armed forces and workers employed in agriculture as stipulated by Article 3

45 Article 18 – Federal Law No. 8

Article 6 (b) of this decree, a recruitment agency is prohibited from ‘‘Acquiring, directly or indirectly, from the worker himself or through mediation, any sums, monies, rights or gains under the name of commission, fees or anything else for any reason.’’46 Furthermore, under this article, the Ministry of Labour has the power to compel recruitment agencies to ‘‘refund to the worker any amounts paid to any entity or person inside or outside the country.’’47 Simultaneously, in cases of violations of this provision, the Ministry of Labour can revoke or temporarily suspend the license of the recruitment agency.48

Consequently, it is forbidden for recruitment agencies to charge fees for the admission process, the arrangement of an employment contract in the UAE and any additional costs. This follows a zero-cost pattern, implying that free visa and a free airline ticket to the UAE is granted, laying down that the migrant workers do not have to reimburse these costs. In contrast, this entails that the entire responsibility is vested in the employer that has to pay these costs.

Moreover, according to a ruling of the Dubai Court of Cassation in 2001 and a decree that was issued by the Ministry of Interior in 2002, the confiscation of passports through employers is deemed an illegal action, meaning that migrant workers have no obligation to hand out their passports to private parties.49 Therefore, the basis for what results in the restriction of movement, debt-bondage and the exploitation throughout the employment relationship in placing the costs on the migrant workers, which forces them to borrow money, accept high- interest loans and mortgage or sell their properties is eliminated so that that migrant workers are intended to arrive in the UAE without being highly indebted.

This principle that no costs may be charged does not only apply in terms of recruitment costs, but also during the employment with regards to arbitrary salary deductions. According to Article 59 and Article 60 of Federal Law No. 8, this entails that migrant workers are not obliged to buy food, medical care or other commodities from the employer and that no portion of these

46 Article 6 (b) - Ministerial resolution No. 1283 Regarding the Licensing and Regulation of Private Recruitment Agencies

47 Article 6 (b) - Ministerial resolution No. 1283 Regarding the Licensing and Regulation of Private Recruitment Agencies

48 Article 5 - Ministerial resolution No. 1283 Regarding the Licensing and Regulation of Private Recruitment Agencies

49 Y. Kakande (December 11, 2015) ''Slave states: The practice of Kafala in the Gulf Arab Region'' , Possession and Control of Passports p. 56 1st edition, Zero Books

23 costs may be deducted from the employee’s remuneration. Rather, employers are obliged to pay the migrant workers their entire salaries and are prohibited from the partial, delayed or non- payment of wages. While salaries are often withheld for several months, Article 56 of Federal Law No. 8 states that employees engaged on a yearly or monthly remuneration must be paid at least once a month.

To ensure more transparency in the salary payment to workers and to protect them from wage abuse, the UAE government implemented in cooperation with the UAE Central Bank Ministerial resolution No. 788 of 2009 that introduced the so-called Wage Protection System (WPS). The WPS is a salary transfer program that obliges employers to pay salaries electronically via financial institutions, allowing the Ministry of Labour to record and supervise the transfer of wages in time, as stipulated by the law. Based on the transactions, the WPS generates a database over which the Ministry of Labour can identify and penalize companies that fail to comply.

According to Article 8 of this decree, an employer is required to the pay the salary within a month of the due date and if the employer fails to do so, the Ministry of Labour can issue a suspension of work permits for the respective company until this violation is resolved. In the event that the company fails to comply a second time with the due payment, the Ministry of Labour can impose the suspension of work permits for 1 month and gradually extend it to 3 months, dependent upon the times of repetition. Alternatively, after a third violation, the Ministry of Labour can also grant no work permits at all and refer this violation to judicial entities until the claim is settled.50

In 2016, this decree was repealed by Ministerial resolution No. 739 and introduced further protection and penalties against employers. First of all, it reinforced that all companies registered with the Ministry of Labour have to subscribe to the WPS and use it for the payment of wages. In case that a company does not register with the WPS, financial transactions will not be processed and the Ministry of Labour will refrain from dealing with the respective company.

More importantly, it reduced the period in which an employer is required to pay the salary. Pursuant to this decree, if an employer fails to pay the employee within 10 days of the due date, this will be considered a late payment and the employer will be issued a warning that no further

50 Article 8 - Ministerial resolution No. 788 of 2009 24 work permits will be granted if the payment is not executed after 16 days.51 As a consequence, if an employer fails to comply after the 16th day of the due payment, the Ministry of Labour will suspend the employer from granting any further work permits until the employer paid the salary.52

In addition, employers that refuse to pay salaries after a month of the due date will be referred to judicial authorities that will impose punitive measures. This includes that the suspension of work permits is extended to all other establishments of the owner and that the company’s status will be decreased in a business classification scheme. Lastly, if the payments are not made after 60 days of the due payment, administrative sanctions, in form of fines are issued for the late payment of each worker affected, reaching up to 50,000 AED.53

Although the WPS provides an innovative solution in opposing wage abuse by enabling a third party to oversee salary transactions and directly intervene with warnings, the suspension of work permits and administrative fines that affect the economic basis of a corporation and thus incentivizes compliance, this system presents several challenges and loopholes. Hereby, it is important to point out that the WPS solely obliges employers to pay salaries, but it does not regulate whether and to what extent migrant workers can access their bank account, whereas employers retain bank cards and prevent them from withdrawing money. Essentially, as the WPS does not prohibit the withholding of bank cards, it allows employers to circumvent this system by only paying salaries that fulfills their obligations over which no violation can be raised.54

This comes to the detriment of the migrants that are not able to buy food, basic necessities or send remittances to their families during their stay. Even if they have access to their salaries, which are relatively low, they cannot provide for an adequate standard of living, also because they are not paid a minimum salary, which contravenes with Article 63 of Federal Law No. 8. This article requires the Ministry of Labour to institute a minimum wage that shall cover the employee’s basic needs and secure the means of living. To date, a minimum salary has not been

51 ''Payment of salaries (wages) '', Available at: https://government.ae/en/information-and-services/jobs/payment- of-wages - (Accessed: May 18, 2019)

52 See 51 53 See 51 54 M. Farooqui, A. Kumar (October 20, 2018) ''How companies circumvent government-backed Wage Protection System to cheat workers'', Available at: https://gulfnews.com/uae/government/how-companies-circumvent- government-backed-wage-protection-system-to-cheat-workers-1.2291834 - (Accessed: May 18, 2019)

25 implemented that aggravates their financial situation and results in migrant workers living at a poverty level, despite the fact that they have to work continuously for weeks and overtime, that being another violation.

With regards to maximum working hours, Federal Law No. 8 lays down strict regulations. It prescribes under Article 65 that maximum working hours may not exceed eight hours per day and more than 48 hours per week. However, many construction workers spend more than 15 hours per day and over 50 hours per week on construction sites and this proceeds for weeks with no overtime pay and very short breaks, if at all.

In this respect, Article 66 indicates that there must be a one-hour break every five hours and according to Article 68 and 69, overtime must be compensated with 50% of the standard payment with an exception that overtime may not exceed two hours per day. Additionally, Friday is considered a weekly holiday for all employees, except for those that are required to work on this day, whereas they have to be compensated with 50% of their standard payment extra.55 Therefore, employers that force migrant construction workers to work overtime for more than ten hours per day without breaks and no overtime pay for weeks constitute a severe violation of the labour law.

Furthermore, under Article 91, an employer is obliged to provide adequate means of protection for employees from occupational injuries and diseases that may occur during work and from the use of machines. Construction work in particular exposes workers to numerous dangers and many migrant workers have suffered damage from falling objects, heat strokes and dehydration, because they were not equipped with appropriate protective gear or had no access to drinking water, which contravenes with other provisions of the labour law that obliges the employer to provide cleanliness on the work place, access to drinking water and decent sanitation systems.56

This is reaffirmed through Ministerial Decree No. 401 Concerning the Determination of Midday Working Hours, which stipulates under Article 4 and Article 5 that the employer has to provide protective means against occupational injuries, access to drinking water, first aid kits and ventilation systems. Moreover, in response to the amount of heat-related illness and cases of dehydration, the Ministry of Labour banned in 2005 outdoor work from 12.30 pm to 4.30 pm in the months of July and August. Nevertheless, in July 2006, it was announced that the

55 Article 70 – Federal Law No. 8 56 Article 94 – Federal Law No. 8 26 midday break would be reduced from 12.30 pm until 3 pm and is nowadays incorporated into Article 1 of this decree.

Consequently, the existing labour law does address many of the exploitative practices that migrant construction workers encounter. In particular, recruitment costs, the confiscation of passports, the partial or non-payment of wages, excessive working hours and unsafe working conditions constitute a violation for which the UAE labour law contains extensive provisions and for which additional decrees and measures have been implemented to secure these rights.

3.1.2 Supervisory mechanisms

Nevertheless, while many of the current laws address the present issues, the main problem is that the enforcement of these laws is ineffective and infrequent. With regards to that, a law in itself can only function if the people concerned are informed that there is a set of law that protects them and when there are other institutions that investigate whether the law is enforced correctly. The latter could be a public authority, in form of a supervisory body or a trade union that represents the interests of the workers and that has the opportunity to invoke them in their name or on behalf of the employees in case of a violation.

Therefore, it is necessary to examine whether the legal system of the UAE establishes such a control by public authorities or a trade union. First of all, the UAE constitution grants under Article 33 the right to freedom of assembly, but the labour law does not recognize the right to form or join trade unions. In fact, trade unions are not permitted in the UAE, which shifts the responsibility of compliance to the state.

According to Federal Law No. 8, labour inspections are the only measure to supervise the implementation of this law. Following Article 166 and Article 167 of Federal Law No. 8., it provides that labour inspections shall be undertaken to control the proper implementation of this law in relation to the working conditions, the protection and safety of the employees in the performance of their duties and report cases of violations. These labour inspections are carried out by specialized inspectors that have the competence to enter any establishments at any time to inspect, interrogate persons or confiscate documents.57

This includes that labour inspectors can instruct employers to make alterations to any installations and impose any necessary measures where an imminent danger threatens the health and safety of the employees. In case that a violation of the labour law is found, the labour inspector has to report that to the Ministry of Labour that has to submit monthly and annual reports on the activities of labour inspections, the corporations inspected and the violations ultimately discovered.58 59 In addition, after a violation of the labour law is found, the Ministry of Labour can impose fines between 3000 and 10000 AED against the employer and refer a case to judicial authorities that can order the imprisonment of up to 6 months.60

57 Article 170 – Federal Law No. 8 58 Article 174 – Federal Law No. 8 59 Article 177 – Federal Law No. 8 60 Article 181 – Federal Law No. 8 28

Despite that, one shortcoming of these labour inspections is that they are carried out randomly, given that the labour law does not specify a regular timeframe in which these inspections have to take place. Instead, labour inspections are carried out at the discretion of the Ministry of Labour, which makes these inspections inconsistent and results in cases of violations remaining undetected.61 Therefore, because of a lack of standardization, the only possibility for compliance that comes to the benefit of the workers is arbitrarily and thus restricts the implementation of the labour laws.

In addition, the transparency and effectiveness of labour inspections is very limited, reflecting upon cases where violations were not sufficiently addressed. One example is that after the restrictions on midday working hours for July and August were implemented with Ministerial resolution No. 467, the Ministry of Labour launched a series of inspections in 2005 where 61,5% of violations were found, but none of the corporations had been penalized.62

Therefore, it may be doubtful whether this control also takes full account of the interests of the workers and it can also be assumed that they are more likely to support the state and the economy by refusing to impose fines on corporations, as there may be an interest on behalf of the state in increasing the profits. For this reason, labour inspections alone are not enough in protecting workers, especially since it enables violators to escape prosecution, whereas the state becomes active in the exploitation of migrant workers as well.

61 (2014) ''Labour Inspection in Arab States: Progress and Challenges'' p. 35-36 , Available at: https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---arabstates/---ro- beirut/documents/publication/wcms_325618.pdf - (Accessed: May 18, 2019)

62 See 29 – p. 90-91 29

3.2 International and regional human rights instruments

Consequently, it cannot be ruled out that next to the domestic regulations, other obligations, for example arising out of international law regarding labour rights are also not enforced correctly. Although the UAE government presents itself as a nation that is committed to promote and protect human rights on a domestic and foreign policy level, the UAE has so far ratified only a relatively small number of international human rights treaties and ILO conventions in comparison to other countries.63 Nevertheless, the UAE stresses to place a high priority on respect for human rights, equality, justice and that its legal system conforms to international standards.

However, the UAE has signed none of the major international human rights conventions, such as the ICCPR or ICESCR, even though it declared to support the implementation of the UDHR. At this point, the UAE has ratified only nine ILO Conventions and five UN human rights treaties, out of which the Forced Labour Convention of 1930 and the Hours of Work Convention of 1919 are essential for this assessment.

3.2.1 Forced Labour Convention of 1930

The Forced Labour Convention of 1930 is intended to prohibit involuntary work under the menace of a penalty and lays down under Article 1 and Article 4 that forced labour may not be imposed by any state party for the benefit of private individuals, companies or associations.64 Hereby, it should be noted that the state has an obligation to protect, respect and fulfill its obligations under this convention. This entails an obligation of an immediate nature to ensure that workers, independent of whether they are UAE nationals or not, do not suffer from violations caused by third parties, which the UAE government has failed to comply with.

In this context, migrant construction workers are often threatened with deportation or arbitrary salary deductions if they refuse to work under unfavorable conditions. This includes working with inappropriate clothing, under excessive working hours and the denial of breaks. In this respect, corporations impose forced labour to attain economic goals, which contravenes with the objective of this convention. Additionally, this is aggravated by the fact that migrant

63 ''The UAE and Human Rights'' , Available at: https://www.mofa.gov.ae/EN/TheUAE/Pages/UAE-and-Human- Rights.aspx - Accessed: May 18, 2019

64 Article 2 – Forced Labour Convention of 1930 30 workers become deprived of their passports and the debts they incur through which the employers compel migrant workers to endure poor working conditions.

Despite that, there are few exceptions under this convention as to when forced labour is allowed. According to Article 9, forced labour may only be exercised if the work is considered important in the interest of the community, necessary and where it is impossible to obtain voluntary labour. In that regard, none of the above exceptions apply to the construction industry in the UAE that is a strictly private activity for the benefit of corporations so that forced labour would not be deemed as permissible in this case.

In contrast, even if the work carried out by the construction workers would fall under this definition, the state and employer have the obligation under Article 17 to take all precautions to safeguard the health of the workers, provide medical staff, access to drinking water and appropriate clothing. Therefore, if the construction work carried out by the migrant workers would be considered as permissible forced labour, many precautions would have to be met, but a large number of migrant construction workers have suffered under heat-related illness, such as heat strokes and dehydration, which implies that the obligations under this convention are violated.

3.2.2. Hours of Work Convention of 1919

Similar to the Forced Labour Convention of 1930, the Hours of Work Convention of 1919 incorporates a high standard of protection for workers as well, whereas this convention is intended to restrict the working hours in hazardous industries. In particular, the convention states under Article 1 that the provisions apply to the construction sector and stipulates under Article 2 that working hours may not exceed 8 hours per day and 48 hours per week.

This provision is identical to the UAE labour law and it also restricts overtime, specifically pointing out in Article 4 that due to the nature of work, overtime is permissible, but that it may not exceed 56 hours on average per week. Nevertheless, based on the fact that many migrant workers work more than 8 hours and in some cases up to 21 hours per day constitutes a severe violation of this convention.

3.2.3 Arab Charter on Human Rights

Lastly, the UAE is a party to the Arab Charter on Human Rights, a regional human rights instrument of the League of Arab States that reaffirms the principles of the UDHR, ICCPR and ICESCR. The ACHR contains numerous articles on civil freedoms and labour-related matters and addresses exploitative practices directed at workers. In relation to the working conditions of migrant workers, the ACHR stipulates under Article 10 (2) that forced labour and any forms of exploitation is prohibited, meaning that any type of work under the threat of a penalty, for example, the intimidation through deportation or arbitrary salary deductions and the confiscation of passports is not allowed.

This is supplemented by Article 34 (2), which states the every worker has the right to just and favorable working conditions and appropriate remuneration that ensure the essential needs of the workers. In practice, the working conditions of migrant workers do not conform to favorable conditions and an appropriate remuneration is also not realized.

In addition, under Article 26 and Article 27, the state must guarantee the right to freedom of movement within the country and the opportunity to leave the country without any restrictions, which reinforces that the that the confiscation of passports, the placement in labour camps with limited exit opportunities and the implication of the Kafala system, namely that the sponsor’s consent is required for the departure of the country is required, contravenes with the provisions of this Charter.

4. Comparison with international human rights standards

4.1 Working and living conditions

Furthermore, it is important to point out that many of the working and living conditions contravene with other existing rules of international law. An example of that is the accommodation in labour camps, where migrant workers are controlled under strict safety precautions and have no opportunity to leave, which limits their freedom of movement. This is a violation of Article 13 of the UDHR, which indicates that every person has the right to move freely within a state and to freely choose his or her residence. This standard is violated insofar, as each migrant is deprived of their right to determination that is delegated to the sponsor under the functioning of the Kafala system.

In this case, the fact that a migrant may not leave the country without the consent of the sponsor constitutes another violation, namely against Article 12 of the ICCPR. According to that, every person who is lawfully resident in a country is free to move there, can choose his or her residence and is entitled to leave the country freely. However, under the Kafala system, it is the sponsor that determines the residence and a change of residence within the country, for example by transferring to another employer requires the consent of the sponsor as well.

This is also enshrined under Article 8.1 of the ICRMW, which establishes that migrant workers may freely leave the country. Nevertheless, leaving the country is only possible with the permission of the employer. This is made even more difficult due to the fact that migrant workers’ passports are retained by employers. According to Article 21 of the ICRMW, only state officials may collect identity documents, while the confiscation of these documents is prohibited by private persons.

Moreover, the fact that the migrant workers receive a considerably low salary is another violation of international law. Although it is not possible to evaluate whether migrant construction workers are paid less than native construction workers, solely because of their status, since UAE citizens generally do not engage in this type of work, the salary that is paid to migrant workers is far below the average income. In this respect, the migrant workers receive an unduly low wage, which cannot guarantee an adequate standard of living. This contravenes with Article 7 (a) of the ICESCR, according to which it must be ensured that the wages that are paid provide a reasonable livelihood.

Lastly, the ICESCR also enshrines that safe and healthy working conditions must be ensured under Article 7 (b). However, since, the existing labour regulation of the Federal Labour Law are not implemented and migrant construction workers suffer under poor working conditions, this stands in contrast to this convention.

Ultimately, despite the fact that the UAE is not a party to any of these international conventions and has no obligation to comply with these provisions, it demonstrates how severely the implications of the Kafala system and the working and living conditions violate human rights.

4.2 The right to form trade unions

However, independent of whether or how many ILO conventions a Member State has ratified, under the 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, the principle applies that every member has an obligation, solely by the virtue of membership to respect, promote and realize the right to freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining.

This is also enshrined under Article 28 and Article 29 of the ACHR and the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention that guarantees the right to freedom of association and the right to join or form trade unions. In this respect, a trade union is essential in safeguarding the rights of migrant workers, because it aims to balance the interests between employers and employees and to protect the latter from the imbalance in the contractual relationship.

Hereby, provisions of the labour law are basically understood as employee protection, but this stands against the general contract law that enables the employer to dictate the terms of employment. Even though an employment contract requires the consent of both parties, which are seen as equal, it is often the employer, who is also the owner of the company that decides under what conditions employment is offered. For instance, the employer has an objective, namely to achieve economic success, whereas wages and other measures for the protection of the health of the workers are costs that reduce the profits.

In contrast, the employee is the party that acquires a job, in order to secure the own existence and is therefore very dependent on finding employment. This dependency arises especially for migrant workers that leave their home country and migrate to send remittances to their families, which overrides the position of equal bargaining power. In turn, for the employer, migrant workers are usually interchangeable and this empowers the employer to lay down the employment conditions according to his or her interests.

To avoid that this unequal position is exploited and to ensure that the contracts established correspond to the applicable labour law, this requires an appropriate control. Thus, in the Western industrialized countries, trade unions were founded on the premise that the individual employee is often inferior to the employer with regards to the bargaining power, working conditions and the compliance with the provisions of the labour law. Trade unions are independent associations with the aim of representing the economic and social interests of the employees that bargain for working conditions, payment and ultimately control the implementation of health and safety conditions. Therefore, the trade union supports the

35 employees and jointly enforces their interests, which makes the employee more powerful towards the employer.

However, the basis to join or form trade unions is lacking in the UAE. This entails that there is no institution that oversees the compliance with the labour law and it gives the migrant workers no position to negotiate the employment and working conditions. This results in low working standards that are possibly hazardous to the health of the workers and means that it is up to the individual workers to arrange all employment conditions and to take action against the violation of the labour law.

This would first of all require that the workers concerned are aware of the labour law situation in the UAE, in order to ascertain whether their personal rights are infringed and that the working conditions constitute a violation of the law. Consequently, the workers must have a basic understanding and an insight as to what is required under the employment relationship that may not be compatible with the applicable labour law. Furthermore, this also entails that the person knows the UAE law thoroughly enough to address violations via judicial means and has the opportunity to afford a corresponding specialist or representation, such as a lawyer. Next to that, this would also require that the person both has the ability to speak the Arabic language and the money to consult a lawyer.

Nevertheless, these migrant workers often come from states that have only moderate standards of labour protections so that the idea that certain activities constitute a violation may be absent. Moreover, since they do not speak Arabic and are not accustomed to worker protection, they often do not think that their working conditions could be in violation with certain legal provisions. In that regard, work for them is motivated purely through economic reasons, which gives the employer under the absence of any supervisory body, in form of a trade union, the ability to exploit migrant workers with no consequences to the detriment of the workers.

4.3 The right to strike

As a result, the position of the individual employee, who is able to defend himself against a violation of the employment contract with regards to the existing provisions of the labour law and to invoke them is only very limited. Usually, the migrant workers are economically dependent on the continuation of the employment relationship, since they have left their home country for that. This economic dependency, but also the fact that the migrant workers are reliant on the respective employer concerning their social status in the UAE, relating to the residence permit, accommodation and the lacking language skills restricts the willingness to enforce the labour law provisions.

Nevertheless, in case that a migrant worker turns against the employer and addresses the corresponding breaches of the labour law provisions, s/he must expect that there will be contractual consequences, such as the dissolution of the employment contract and an expulsion to the home country, which would then eliminate their economic foundation. However, the situation would be different if not only a single employee opposes the non-compliance of the labour law, but if all of the affected workers would join together to assert their interests and collectively demand them.

One measure of this effort to enforce labour rights under the UAE labour law, in terms of better working conditions would therefore be the mean of a strike. A strike means the joint and planned work stoppage of several workers with the aim of achieving the realization of a specific right and once this objective has been achieved, to resume the work as contractually required. The mean of a collective strike thus reinforces the position of the individual worker towards the employer, because the employer is prevented by a collective work refusal from further fulfilling the economic goal. With the common refusal to continue working, the employer should be moved to concessions, such as the alignment of the employment contract to the standard of protection as the labour law of the UAE stipulates.

At this point, the employer has the opportunity to get involved in the demands of the employees, in order to achieve the continuation of the work or could impose individual measures, such as the dismissal of the workers engaged in strike and hire new workers, but this is a lengthy process and the workers must first be trained accordingly, so that the employer cannot achieve the economic goals for a certain period of time.

Therefore, a strike is more effective through the collective than any action taken by a single worker. Nevertheless, refusing to work in the context of a labour strike is a violation of the

37 actual duty arising from the employment relationship. By signing the employment contract, the employee has undertaken to perform the type of work, for which s/he then receives the agreed remuneration in return. In that regard, the labour strike constitutes a breach of the employees’ duty and may, if it is unjustified, lead to the termination of the employment relationship based on misconduct.

In this respect, the labour law of the Western industrialized countries distinguishes between legal and illegal labour strikes and the fact that the respective constitution allows the right of association as a fundamental right in the first place.

While a lawful strike merely suspends the right to further payment of the remuneration during the strike and the mutual rights and obligations arising from the employment relationship, this does not affect the employment relationship itself, whereas the inception of an irregular strike constitutes a ground for termination, because of a gross misconduct under the labour law, which allows the employer to bring the employment contract lawfully and unilaterally to an end. In this respect, a labour strike is only permissible if it is declared by a trade union. Therefore, a strike is only possible if there is a legal basis for it and a collective association formed to protect workers' interests that has called for a strike.

This is missing in the UAE. The Constitution of the UAE does not guarantee the right to join or form trade unions as a fundamental right of the population. Rather, under Article 112 of Federal Law No. 8, a strike is considered a crime and is illegal in the UAE.

Thus, any call for a collective work stoppage for the enforcement of labour rights in the UAE, even according the understanding of Western industrialized countries would be deemed an irregular strike, based on the absence of trade union. Consequently, a corresponding work refusal would no longer be justified and would also constitute a gross violation of the employment obligations and would also lead to the termination of the employment contract thereafter.

5. Economic exploitation of migrant workers and its incentives

5.1 Vulnerability of migrant workers and their social status in the UAE

Only a small proportion of the population are UAE citizens. This makes the UAE a major immigration country that has relied on migrant workers for many years for its economic development. Despite that, the high proportion of foreigners and the imbalance between natives and foreigners accumulates certain dangers, such as the repression of the native society and the risk of intercommunal tensions.

According to the understanding of the native population, migrant workers are a kind of dividend, as they bring in the knowledge and innovation that has developed the UAE and made it what it is today. The migrant workers themselves are also a driving force for further developments and investments, because a high population density offers incentives for the establishment of enterprises and thus contributes to further economic growth.

In this respect, migrant workers are an important element for the UAE. Besides that, as the UAE itself has a small native population, it was important to avoid that this part of the population would be driven back to the benefit of the migrant workers, resulting in the loss of tradition, habits and their own identity. In order to avoid this, the native population not only have their own privileges, such as free housing and free access to education, but have also adjusted their labour market very hierarchically.

While the native population works primarily in the civil service and enjoys many associated benefits, migrant construction workers are mainly employed in a private and low-paid sector. More specifically, in order to not lose control of their own country, despite the need for migrant workers, the Kafala sponsorship system continues to apply. Although this sponsorship system was initially designed to ensure that migrant workers are recruited more efficiently, this system is a control mechanism that encourages the exploitation of these workers.

In addition to the basic idea of the Kafala system, migrant workers thus fall into a further dependence towards their employer, as they often come with high debts, which must first be paid before they are able to earn their wages and send remittances to their families.

However, this dependency mainly affects migrant workers from low-paid sectors, such as the construction industry. They often perform low-skilled jobs and are therefore replaceable in their work and often come from countries where unemployment is high and wages are low. In spite

39 of this reliance, they benefit from work in the UAE, because they receive wages, which are often much higher than in their home country. This is an incentive for them to leave their home country to support their family in sending their earnings. Since this activity is only temporary in accordance with the requirements of the Kafala system, the migrant workers often see this as a transitional activity and are more willing to compromise on working conditions than highly qualified and Western expatriates.

Especially because of the financial responsibility towards their family, but also due to the fact that migrant workers usually start working in the UAE with debts owed to their employers makes them far more capable of tolerating poor working conditions than other trained professionals, considering that these migrant workers come from countries, which do not have high standards of labour protection and therefore have no basic idea about possible protection and violations. Thus, these migrant workers come only to the UAE to find work and support their family financially and not with the expectation of working under high standards of labour protection, enabling the employer to exploit this position.

By contrast, Western expatriates, but also workers from neighboring Arab states operating in the UAE are generally not affected by the associated difficulties inherent in the Kafala system. They often have a much higher professional qualification and are therefore not forced to work in the low-paid sector as other migrant workers. With their special skills, they support the economic development and thus provide the necessary expertise in the UAE that the population itself does not have. Although they are not taken out of the scope of the Kafala system, they experience less exploitative practices.

More importantly, as these highly qualified workers are not always interchangeable, they have a different dependency towards the sponsor and the employer. In this case, the employer is often reliant on the expertise of these worker, so that the corresponding dependency is equal among them. For this reason, the costs of entry and the visa registration fees or other costs are not borne by the employees, but by the employer that ascribes these costs, in order to be able to use this expertise and to be considered an attractive employer.

This will be the case if these migrants and their professional qualifications are highly sought- after, so that the dependency turns and the employer become highly reliant on these workers for their expertise that is required for the continuation of economic prosperity in the UAE. In addition, well-trained expatriates often come from states where workplace safety and high standards of labour protection are common. In principle, they are aware of institutions, such as trade unions and work councils, which were formed to protect workers' interests. Therefore, 40 they have sufficient knowledge about occupational safety that they expect in the UAE and are more sensitive towards violations than migrant workers from countries where high standards of labour protection are missing. Furthermore, Western expatriates also have sufficient language skills, financial resources and legal opportunities to address possible breaches of the UAE labour law.

In that regard, the treatment between migrant workers is dependent upon the economic relationship between the employer, but also the skills and expectations that they bring with them. Accordingly, low-skilled workers that do not have valuable skills and do not necessarily contribute to the economic development of this country effectively are treated less favorable than highly professional workers with skills that the domestic population is lacking.

6. Conclusion

Nevertheless, migrant workers in the UAE are indispensable. The dependence of the UAE on foreign workers is very high and they account for about 80% of its workforce. The considerable economic development and the associated modernization plans and construction projects created a huge demand for qualified, as well as low-skilled workers that could not be covered by the domestic population.

Although the working conditions are often poor according to Western understandings, it is above all economic reasons that motivate migrant workers to leave their home country to work in the UAE. As low-skilled workers, they often come from developing countries, such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh that do not provide work opportunities and a financial basis for themselves and their families, forcing them to migrate and to work under inadequate conditions in the UAE construction industry.

One reason for these poor working conditions lies in the traditional Kafala sponsorship system, which constitutes the main element of the immigration law after the foundation of the UAE in 1971. Under the Kafala sponsorship system, migrant workers require a UAE sponsor, who vouches for them and takes over legal and economic responsibility, whereas recruitment agencies recruit the prospective workers directly in the sending countries. The central problem is that these recruitment agencies lure workers with attractive working conditions and high wages, but in retrospect, they incur all sorts of costs, in the form of recruitment costs, visa registration fees or that of airline tickets forward to the workers, even though the employer has to pay for that.

However, these workers do not have the financial resources, which induces them to raise money, in order to compensate the costs. One possibility is to sell their own property, borrow money from friends or to accept a loan directly from the recruitment agency that is connected with a high-interest rate that migrant workers have to pay off during their stay. As a result, migrant workers are highly indebted before they enter the UAE, which creates an economic dependency.

Furthermore, under the Kafala sponsorship system, they also need permission from their sponsor to enter and leave the country or to change to another employer within the UAE. This creates another dependency, since the sponsor has full control over the workers and the unilateral power to terminate the employment relationship, which results in the deportation of 42 the migrant worker. This implies that if a migrant worker absconds or changes the employer without the permission of the sponsor, the migrant will be punished and immediately deported. The same applies to the sponsor who will be fined and loses the license to recruit further migrant workers. To avoid that, the sponsor confiscates the passport of migrant workers upon arrival.

As a result, migrant workers are virtually deprived of their rights and freedom of movement, especially since they are placed into labour camps under strict supervision with no opportunity to move freely within the country. Hereby, they live under inhumane conditions in cramped rooms with poorly equipped sanitary systems, which negatively affects their health. In addition migrant workers often struggle with poor working conditions, whereas they have to work excessively long under unsafe conditions without payment, breaks, appropriate protective gear and access to drinking water. Consequently, many construction workers are injured, physically and mentally impaired through heat strokes or dehydration or even killed by accidents.

Nonetheless, the UAE has also developed and introduced a labour law in 1980 that largely protects workers’ rights. This law applies to all employees within the UAE, including migrant workers and sets out maximum working hours, timely payment of wages, obligations for employers to provide safety measures in the workplace and the prohibition to charge recruitment costs. In principle, the labour law implements high standards of worker protection, which forbids the exploitative practices that migrant construction workers encounter and comes very close to the labour standards of Western industrialized countries. In addition, the UAE is a party to several international conventions that restrict maximum working hours and prohibit forced labour that comes at the benefit of the workers.

Despite that, these labour standards are often not enforced in practice. The problem lies in the conclusion of the employment contract that is signed in the sending countries, usually in their native language, but substituted with another contract in Arabic that migrant workers have to sign upon their arrival in the UAE. According to the UAE Labour law, only the Arabic contracts are valid, which gives no legal effect to their previous contract they have signed.

In that regard, since the majority of migrant workers do not speak Arabic, there is no certainty as to whether the contract, which the migrants already sign in their home country actually correspond to the contract they sign subsequently to their arrival in the UAE. Problematic is that an examination of the contracts and prosecution of possible violations or deviations to the applicable labour laws, for example at the entry or at the beginning of the work through an inspection is not provided.

Even though the labour law provides for a review by state authorities through labour inspections at the workplace, the frequency of these inspections are unregulated, which implies that this form of supervision is inconsistent. Next to that, the UAE labour law does not provide any other supervisory mechanisms, so that the labour inspections are the only mean to rule out possible violations of the UAE labour law.

In this respect, the UAE labour law does not provide for the establishment of workers’ representatives, in the form of a trade union that is committed to oversee the implementation of workers’ interest and to ensure that the working conditions align with the requirements of the labour law. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the individual worker to address violations and seek compliance with the standards of the UAE labour law. Yet, in the first place, this requires that the employee has any knowledge of the provisions of the labour law and the protection enshrined therein. In this context, one has to keep in mind that these workers often come from developing countries where labour protection is relatively uncommon. For this reason, they often lack the awareness that they could claim any protection as part of their work to avoid possible health hazards.

Hereby, they also lack the support of public authorities, for example a trade union, so that they would have to acquire the knowledge of the UAE labour law by themselves and this would also require legal assistance for which the migrant workers do not have the financial resources. With regards to that, it is also important to consider what consequences the migrant workers would have if they found out that their actual working conditions violate the UAE labour law.

Although they could demand the implementation of the existing labour law against their employer, the employer acts as a sponsor under the Kafala system, who usually withholds their passport and provides them with accommodation, so that the hurdle to oppose the unlawful working conditions is so high due to their dependency that it is unlikely, even if they were informed about unlawful working conditions that they would invoke them. In turn, the employer can threaten the deportation, over which the migrant workers lose their income, which also ensures the existence of their family in their home country.

Because of this dependency, the willingness of the individual employee to oppose violations of the applicable labour law is low and unlawful practices are tolerated among the migrant workers, as they would face severe consequences otherwise. Therefore, it would be the only remaining and effective mean of workers to collectively point to the violation in using a strike and induce the employer to take appropriate action. In this respect, they can organize a work stoppage by all affected workers, which would protect the individual employee against any 44 reprisals, such as the contract termination and the subsequent deportation. However, a collective work refusal is only permissible if the legal system allows such actions. In that regard, a permissible strike is based on the right of freedom of association and is initiated through trade unions, but they are not permitted in the UAE and the legal system does not guarantee this right and strikes themselves are also considered a crime. As a consequence, a workers' strike would also be an unlawful measure, which could be prosecuted with sanctions.

Irrespective of the lack of measures to attain compliance, it can be assumed that migrant workers, who have left their home country exclusively for economic reasons are generally not interested in whether the respective provisions of their employment contract comply with the applicable regulations of the labour law. Their primary intention is usually to support themselves and their family at home financially, which restricts the workers in their willingness to oppose any violations. Moreover, because of the Kafala system, they often have debts to repay, do not have passports, nor are they allowed to change the employer without the consent of their current employer and they are usually accommodated in camps provided by the employer.

In this respect, they are economically as well as socially dependent on the existence of the respective employment relationship, so that they submit to the respective working conditions, regardless of whether they comply with the labour law or not.

Nevertheless, it should be emphasized that the working conditions of migrant workers do not conform to the labour law of the UAE and will not as long as the migrant workers continue to be dependent on their employer due to the Kafala system. Only when this system changes, when there are appropriate controls of working conditions and when additional employee representations, such as trade unions are approved, the labour law, which provides a high standard of protection and conforms to Western legal systems, could be effectively enforced.

Consequently, in its current state, the UAE labour law does address the exploitative practices migrant construction workers face, but based on the absence of effective control mechanisms, it facilitates the exploitation of migrant workers at the same time. As long as this is not changed, the migrant workers will be exploited on the grounds of their economic and social dependency towards the employer that is favored by the Kafala system and will therefore accept any working conditions, even if they are incompatible with the applicable UAE labour law.

This makes the Kafala system and its basic idea in transferring the responsibility of control regarding the labour law, including the payment of wages and working conditions to the

45 sponsor, a private entity, the central factor that simplifies exploitation. As the state relies on the sponsor to acquire the role of the protector of the migrant workers and to oversee a number of regulations, this offers the sponsor the opportunity to exploit the missing authority from the state to its advantage. Combined with a restricted control mechanism that provides for sporadic, rather than regular labour inspections and no possibility for migrant workers to have their voices heard through trade unions, this results in migrant workers being exposed to all kinds of exploitative practices, independent of how strong the protection of the applicable labour law is.

7. Bibliography

K. Al-Ghanim (September 2015) - ''Kafala System Remains Resilient in the GCC by Kaltham Al- Ghanim'' p. 3 Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282024272_Kafala_System_Remains_Resili ent_in_the_GCC_by_Kaltham_Al-Ghanim Accessed: April 24, 2019

S. S. Amrith (February 23, 2011) ''Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia'', Asian Migrants in the Age of Globalization p. 165-166 1st edition, Cambridge University Press, New York

O. Chidiac (December 17, 2014) - ''Migrant Construction and Domestic Workers in the Arab Gulf States: Modern - Day Slaves?'' p. 63 Retrieved from: https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1015&context=l lm Accessed: May 5, 2019

F. De Bel-Air (July 2015) - ''Demography, Migration, and the Labour Market in the UAE'' p. 3-4 Retrieved from: http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/36375/GLMM_ExpNote_07_2015.pdf Accessed: February 25, 2019

J. N. Ezeilo (February 22, 2013) - ''Report of the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, on her mission to the United Arab Emirates'' p.4 Retrieved from: https://www.refworld.org/cgibin/texis/vtx/rwmain/opendocpdf.pdf?reldoc=y&docid=5 1aefc344 Accessed: May 14, 2019

M. Farooqui, A. Kumar (October 20, 2018) - ''How companies circumvent government-backed Wage Protection System to cheat workers'', Retrieved from: https://gulfnews.com/uae/government/how-companies-circumvent- government-backed-wage-protection-system-to-cheat-workers-1.2291834 Accessed: May 18, 2019

S. Hamza (April 2015) - ''Migrant Labor in the Arabian Gulf: A Case Study of Dubai'' p. 82-83 - Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at the University of Tennessee: Vol. 6: Iss. 1, Article 10, Retrieved from: https://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&http sredir=1&article=1244&context=pursuit Accessed: February 25, 2019

R. Hassan (April 24, 2018) - ''The UAE’s Unsustainable Nation Building'' Retrieved from: https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/uaes-unsustainable-nation-building Accessed: April 7, 2019

S. Hepburn, R. J. Simon (June 2013) - ''Human Trafficking Around the World: Hidden in Plain Sight'', The UAE as a Destination p. 65 1st edition - Columbia University Press, New York

Y. Kakande (December 11, 2015) - ''Slave states: The practice of Kafala in the Gulf Arab Region'' , Possession and Control of Passports p. 56 1st edition - Zero Books

A. Khan , H. Harroff-Tavel (September 1, 2011) - ''Reforming the Kafala: Challenges and Opportunities in Moving Forward'' p. 298 - Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, Vol. 20, Nos.3-4 Retrieved from: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/011719681102000303 - Accessed: May 10, 2019

D. Keane, N. McGeehan (2008) - ''Enforcing Migrant Workers’ Rights in the United Arab Emirates'' p. 88, 111 - International Journal on Minority and Group Rights Vol. 15 Retrieved from: https://www.upr- info.org/sites/default/files/document/united_arab_emirates/session_03_- _december_2008/mafiwasta_are_upr_s3_2008anx_enforcingmigrantworkersrightsinth eunitedarabemirates.pdf Accessed: May 12, 2019

P. Mahdavi (April 13, 2011) - ''Gridlock: Labor, Migration, and Human Trafficking in Dubai'', Trafficking Trafficking p. 26, 1st edition, Stanford University Press, Stanford

F. Malit, G. Naufal (May 2016) - ''Asymmetric Information under the Kafala Sponsorship System: Impacts on Foreign Domestic Workers’ Income and Employment Status in the GCC Countries'' p. 5 Retrieved from: http://ftp.iza.org/dp9941.pdf Accessed: May 4, 2019

P. Menon, A. Abocar (June 2, 2011) - ''Suicides shed light on darker side of Dubai's glitz'' Retrieved from: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-emirates-labourers- suicide/suicides-shed-light-on-darker-side-of-dubais-glitz-idUSTRE7511GK20110602 Accessed: May 17, 2019

R. A. Nockerts (January 1, 2015) - ''Toward a Global Human Rights Regime for Temporary Migrant Workers: Lessons from the Case of Filipino Workers in the United Arab Emirates'' p. 80 Retrieved from: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1477&context=etd Accessed: April 25, 2019

K. Randeree (September 2014) - ''Organisational Justice: Migrant Worker Perceptions in Organisations in the United Arab Emirates'' p. 62 - Journal of Business Systems, Governance and Ethics Vol. 3, No. 4 Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kasim_Randeree/publication/287591433_Organi sational_Justice_Migrant_Worker_Perceptions_in_Organisations_in_the_United_Arab _Emirates/links/568bdd4c08ae129fb5cb8c09.pdf Accessed: May 17, 2019

J. Sharma (July 17, 2017) - ''Why are Migrant Workers' Passports still being held hostage in the UAE?'' Retrieved from: https://psmag.com/social-justice/why-are-migrant-workers-passports-still-being-held- hostage-in-uae Accessed: May 13, 2019

S. Sönmez, Y. Apostopoulos, D. Tran. S. Rentrope (August 20, 2013) - ''Human rights and health disparities for migrant workers in the UAE'' - Health and Human Rights Journal 13/2, Retrieved from: https://www.hhrjournal.org/2013/08/human-rights-and-health-disparities-for-migrant- workers-in-the-uae/ Accessed: 2019, May 17

H. Thiollet (November 8, 2018) - ''Migration as Diplomacy: Labor Migrants, Refugees, and Arab Regional Politics in the Oil-Rich Countries'' p. 9 Retrieved from: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01675531/document Accessed: April 2, 2019

----- (May 19, 2009) - ''The Island of Happiness: Exploitation of Migrant Workers on Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi'' Retrieved from: https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/05/19/island-happiness/exploitation-migrant- workers-saadiyat-island-abu-dhabi Accessed: April 4, 2019

----- ''Economy'' Retrieved from: https://www.government.ae/en/about-the-uae/economy Accessed: April 4, 2019

----- (September 2014) - ''The Kafala: Research on the Impact and Relation of the Sponsorship System to Migrant Labor Bondage in GCC Countries'' p. 25 Retrieved from: https://www.apmigrants.org/articles/publications/Featured%20Researches/Kafala%20 Research%202014-FINAL.pdf Accessed: April 16, 2019

----- (October 2014) - ''I Already Bought You: Abuse and Exploitation of Female Migrant Domestic Workers in the United Arab Emirates'' p. 18-19 Retrieved from: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/uae1014_forUpload.pdf Accessed: April 19, 2019

----- ''Policy Brief No. 2: Reform of The Kafala (Sponsorship) System'' Retrieved from: https://www.ilo.org/dyn/migpractice/docs/132/PB2.pdf Accessed: April 24, 2019

----- (2013) - ''Inter-Regional Report on Labour Migration and Social Protection'' p. 11 Retrieved from: https://www.unescwa.org/file/31374/download?token=OZQTSBoW Accessed: May 12, 2019

----- ''Payment of salaries (wages)'' Retrieved from: https://government.ae/en/information-and-services/jobs/payment-of- wages Accessed: May 18, 2019

----- (2014) ''Labour Inspection in Arab States: Progress and Challenges'' p. 35-36 Retrieved from: https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---arabstates/---ro- beirut/documents/publication/wcms_325618.pdf Accessed: May 18, 2019

----- (November 11, 2006) - ''Building Towers, Cheating Workers Exploitation of Migrant Construction Workers in the United Arab Emirates'', Retrieved from: https://www.hrw.org/report/2006/11/11/building-towers-cheating- workers/exploitation-migrant-construction-workers-united Accessed: May 15, 2019

----- ''The UAE and Human Rights'' Retrieved from: https://www.mofa.gov.ae/EN/TheUAE/Pages/UAE-and-Human- Rights.aspx Accessed: May 18, 2019

----- (October 16, 2017) ''Migrant Workers’ Rights'' Retrieved from: http://icfuae.org.uk/issues/migrant-workers%E2%80%99-rights Accessed: May 5, 2019