#07#09 #21#12 nion Confederation U nternational Trade nternational Trade I C U T UNION VIEW I May 2011 g Matilde Gattoni Hidden faces of the Gulf miracle Behind the gleaming cities of Doha (Qatar) and Dubai (UAE), stories of migrant workers with few rights and inhuman living conditions. #21 Migrant worker misery lies behind gleaming towers of Gulf cities VIEW UNION • 2 MAY 2011 MAY g Matilde Gattoni t’s hard not to be impressed by a first sight of the gleaming tion often rudimentary and air-conditioning when it exists is Inew cities springing out of the desert coast of the Persian sometimes ineffectual when summer temperatures soar over Gulf. 40˚C. Many work at dangerous jobs with little or no health insurance. Dubai oozes glamour and bristles with superlatives: the world’s tallest building, most luxurious hotels and biggest The migrant workers are nothing if not resistant. Many say shopping malls and vast artificial islands. they are willing to put up with the heat and harsh conditions In Doha, an ongoing building boom is poised to move up for the chance to support their families with wages way several gears as work kicks off on a massive infrastructure beyond what they can earn at home. All too often however, programme in preparation for the 2022 World Cup. salaries are paid months overdue. The downtown skyline of Qatar’s capital already glistens like Conned by unscrupulous recruitment agents, workers arrive a Middle Eastern Manhattan across the bay from the iconic in the Gulf to discover they are paid considerably less than architecture of its new Museum of Islamic Art. they were promised back in their homelands, leaving the traumatised migrants struggling to pay off the debts they What the tourists, sports fans and business travellers jetting ran up to fund their passage to the Gulf let alone provide for in to the Gulf states may not see are the millions of migrant their struggling families. workers whose toil continues to build the new towers, shopping centres, hotels, stadiums and museums sprouting “These are the people who made this country, who trans- across these Arabian boomtowns. formed the desert into a beautiful city and now they are liv- ing like this,” says Saaed* a Pakistani driver visiting friends The army of men from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Somalia living 10 to a room in a slum area beneath the towers of and a slew of other developing countries has been lured to Dubai’s swanky financial district. the oil-rich nations of the Gulf on a promise of fat wages. Far from the air-conditioned malls and beachfront condos, “There are people here who are not getting paid for several they inhabit overcrowded barrack-like housing, in sprawl- months…their families are expecting them to send some- ing, dust-clogged, male-only suburbs like Dubai’s notorious thing back, but there’s nothing. They are desperate.” Sonapur or the Industrial Area on the outskirts of Doha. The migrants have few chances of escaping from abusive Bussed home exhausted after long hours working in often employers. A system known as Kafala binds foreign workers blistering heat, the men are squeezed into up to ten to a to the local companies that sponsored their travel to the Gulf room in company accommodation. Food is basic, sanita- nations. The workers need their employers’ authorization to switch Control, was quoted telling The National newspaper. “We #21 job, and companies frequently hold migrants’ passports to cannot keep people here who create disorder. Their pres- ensure they don’t leave the country before the end of their ence in the country is dangerous and therefore we need to contacts. Governments in both Qatar and the UAE have take action against them.” (1) VIEW taken steps recently to improve the migrants’ situation, but In partnership with Korea’s Samsung Corp. and Belgian UNION application of new laws is patchy, and lengthy court proce- builder Besix, Arabtec built the Burj Khalifa, the world’s dures can leave the workers waiting for months without pay tallest building. Completed in 2010, the steel and glass spire when they do seek legal redress. rises 828 metres above downtown Dubai and houses the In desperation at ill-treatment or unpaid wages, some Armani hotel, where rooms start at $650-a-night. migrants simply abscond. They find themselves in limbo, • 3 In both the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, migrants make banned from legal work in their host nation and without the up the overwhelming majority of the population. papers or funds to secure a passage home. According to the government figures, just 825,000 of the May 2011 Ali, a tailor from the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, has been 4.1 million people living in the UAE are citizens. Dubai’s earning a pittance working in the black market for over a migrant population dipped when the country was rocked by year-and-a-half since running away from a sponsor who the financial crash of 2009, which froze $582 billion worth refused to pay his wages. of infrastructure projects and led to thousands of migrants “I went to the company to get my passport but they refused,” being thrown out of work. Across the UAE, however, 70 he explains as he stands in line for a ladle of vegetable curry percent of the population are migrants. and yellow rice from a backstreet soup kitchen run by a local A census published in Qatar in October 2010 showed the charity. “Now, I just want to go home.” population of the gas-rich state had more than doubled in six Trade unions are effectively banned under the laws of the years to 1.69 million, but native Qataris number only around UAE and Qatar, so migrant workers have little chance to 200,000. In the labour market, the demographics are even organize protest against their conditions. more striking: just six percent of the workforce is Qatari. When they do, they can expect a harsh response. Some Among the world’s richest people, Qatari and Emirati citizens 3,000 workers at the giant Arabtec construction company don’t drive taxis, wait on tables or install plumbing. Their struck in January for an increase in monthly salaries that economies are dependent on the manual labour of migrant were reportedly as low 650 dirham ($175). The authori- workers hailing mostly from south Asia, the Philippines or ties’ response was uncompromising. Seventy Bangladeshi more recently East Africa. workers accused of instigating the strike were arrested and, Qatar can expect exponential growth in the migrant popula- according to Bangladeshi authorities, deported from Dubai. tion during the run-up to the World Cup when infrastructure “We intend to deport the workers whose involvement is investments are expected to top $100 billion. Some esti- proven,” Col Mohammed al Mur, director general of the mates suggest up to one million additional workers will be Dubai Police General Department of Legal and Disciplinary lll g Matilde Gattoni lll There is a similar situation in Dubai, where 161 women were #21 needed to build the 12 stadiums, 70,000 new hotel rooms seeking refuge at another POLO shelter in early February. and a network of road and rail links planned for the football extravaganza. “Most of them run away because they experience maltreat- says Yuri Cipriano, a volun- VIEW ment from their employers,” The Qatari government has announced plans to improve UNION teer with the Filipino human rights organization Migrante conditions for the migrant workers expected to flock in for Internationale. “Most of them have been beaten or verbally the 2022 construction boom, including model housing com- abused. They don't have a day off and their salaries are not plexes and tighter laws to prevent abuse. However, pressure given to them.” will be on the world football body FIFA and the Western companies lining up for lucrative World Cup contracts to Faced with international criticism, the governments in both • 4 ensure that workers are provided with decent working, wage Qatar and the UAE have taken steps to improve conditions and housing conditions. for migrant labour. Both have introduced legislation to grant MAY 2011 MAY Qatar is the richest nation in the world with income per head workers more flexibility to change jobs, although they reject of $88,000 according to data last year from the International talk of scrapping the Kafala sponsorship system altogether. Monetary Fund. (2) A Nepalese construction worker is lucky Tighter rules have been brought in to control unscrupulous re- to get $3,600 year. A tearful Filipina domestic worker in cruitment agencies, safety standards have been improved and Doha explained she was hoping to get an annual salary of workers have been granted extended statutory breaks from $2,500, often working 18 hours a day, before she ran away from her abusive employer. the blazing afternoon sun through three months of summer. The massive influx of labour into the Gulf has skewed the The UAE’s Wages Protection System phased in since 2009 gender balance. Men outnumber women in Dubai by more obliges companies to pay workers through electronic bank than three to one. Migrants living and working in Qatar’s payments which can be monitored by the authorities. The Industrial Area can go for months without seeing a woman. move has been widely praised, but it has not stopped late The tens-of-thousands of men living in Sonapur can be payment of wages being the biggest complaint in the migrant seen spending their weekly Friday rest day with a mixture hostels. The building of better housing for some has not of prayer and cricket, but scattered piles of empty bottles of prevented hundreds of thousands living in squalid conditions.