The dark side of Dubai's slave based economy

Dubai is the financial capital of the Middle East and we constantly hear how wonderful it is. Articles like this suggest that we should start to think otherwise. This article is related to finance and belongs here. If you don't want to read about what is going on, then don't read the article.

The dark side of Dubai's slave based economy

I'm guessing it's the "slave-based" aspect of it.

kantscholar said: Dubai is the financial capital of the Middle East and we constantly hear how wonderful it is. Articles like this suggest that we should start to think otherwise. This article is related to finance and belongs here. If you don't want to read about what is going on, then don't read the article.

wrong. Dubai is not the "financial capital" of the middle east, under any definition of economic activity and middle east.
It's just way too small and insignificant.

The example above is not really the main example of slavery in Dubai... the article is LONG but interesting... here are some excerpts:

" The sheikh did not build this city. It was built by slaves. They are building it now.

III. Hidden in plain view

There are three different Dubais, all swirling around each other. There are the expats, like Karen; there are the Emiratis, headed by Sheikh Mohammed; and then there is the foreign underclass who built the city, and are trapped here. They are hidden in plain view. You see them everywhere, in dirt-caked blue uniforms, being shouted at by their superiors, like a chain gang – but you are trained not to look. It is like a mantra: the Sheikh built the city. The Sheikh built the city. Workers? What workers?

Every evening, the hundreds of thousands of young men who build Dubai are bussed from their sites to a vast concrete wasteland an hour out of town, where they are quarantined away. Until a few years ago they were shuttled back and forth on cattle trucks, but the expats complained this was unsightly, so now they are shunted on small metal buses that function like greenhouses in the desert heat. They sweat like sponges being slowly wrung out.

Sonapur is a rubble-strewn patchwork of miles and miles of identical concrete buildings. Some 300,000 men live piled up here, in a place whose name in Hindi means "City of Gold". In the first camp I stop at – riven with the smell of sewage and sweat – the men huddle around, eager to tell someone, anyone, what is happening to them.

Sahinal Monir, a slim 24-year-old from the deltas of Bangladesh. "To get you here, they tell you Dubai is heaven. Then you get here and realise it is hell," he says. Four years ago, an employment agent arrived in Sahinal's village in Southern Bangladesh. He told the men of the village that there was a place where they could earn 40,000 takka a month (£400) just for working nine-to-five on construction projects. It was a place where they would be given great accommodation, great food, and treated well. All they had to do was pay an up-front fee of 220,000 takka (£2,300) for the work visa – a fee they'd pay off in the first six months, easy. So Sahinal sold his family land, and took out a loan from the local lender, to head to this paradise.

As soon as he arrived at Dubai airport, his passport was taken from him by his construction company. He has not seen it since. He was told brusquely that from now on he would be working 14-hour days in the desert heat – where western tourists are advised not to stay outside for even five minutes in summer, when it hits 55 degrees – for 500 dirhams a month (£90), less than a quarter of the wage he was promised. If you don't like it, the company told him, go home. "But how can I go home? You have my passport, and I have no money for the ticket," he said. "Well, then you'd better get to work," they replied. "

Here's a second excerpt about a native attorney in Dubai:

"Mohammed tells me he was born in Dubai to a fisherman father who taught him one enduring lesson: Never follow the herd. Think for yourself. In the sudden surge of development, Mohammed trained as a lawyer. By the Noughties, he had climbed to the head of the Jurists' Association, an organisation set up to press for Dubai's laws to be consistent with international human rights legislation.

And then – suddenly – Mohammed thwacked into the limits of Sheikh Mohammed's tolerance. Horrified by the "system of slavery" his country was being built on, he spoke out to Human Rights Watch and the BBC. "So I was hauled in by the secret police and told: shut up, or you will lose you job, and your children will be unemployable," he says. "But how could I be silent?"

He was stripped of his lawyer's licence and his passport – becoming yet another person imprisoned in this country. "I have been blacklisted and so have my children. The newspapers are not allowed to write about me." "

Slavery is omnipresent, from attorneys down to construction workers... There is a very real problem of slavery in the Mideast...its all the way down to H&B.... there are thousands of young women from Thailand the the Philippines enticed by promises of "hostess/entertainment/dancing" careers.

But paying what you owe or facing jail isnt a bad idea at all.

Not very interesting. Nothing new here as Dubai had been importing slave labor since the beginning and had been well reported. If I am not mistaken their lowest class made up more than double of the rest.

From what I understand, the imported, poorly-treated low-wage workers are fairly typical in several oil-rich middle-eastern countries - Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, ect. You have a small, wealthy group who does little and lots of poor laborers who support them.

I would have liked the article better if he stuck to the slavelike work conditions instead of the frequent gripes about consumer culture being "fake".

user12345 said: Also despite you saying "we constantly hear how wonderful it is", I bet you all the foreigners would leave immediately if it wasn't profitable for them to stay. They don't really belong - they don't mix with the native citizens (who only accepts them because they help developing their country), they don't have permanent residence permits (it's all based on temporary work visas), and in the end it's just a small remote place in a hellish desert. So what if the king is rich and decided to bring talent from other lands to build him a shiny new castle ? That's still far from what most enlightened people would consider a desirable place to live.

Have you ever been to Dubai??? This is one of the finest and most desirable country's to live in considering its standard of living. It no way looks like a desert. What are you talkin abt? "a small remote place in a hellish desert"

I DO agree that workers are not treated right here and the country has its flaw.

kantscholar said: Are you serious? What about all of the individuals who are unable to leave. Your statement is true for most white Europeans/Americans over there, but those other people count as well. It is hardly profitable for those individuals to stay--unless you think all of the reports about quasi slave labor in Dubai and other Arab countries are either lies or grossly exaggerated.Kant this is a point which I believe could be open for debate. I realize that their wages are low, and in some instances, they have to repay a loan taken out to land the job in the first place. But having worked as an expat in Saudi for many years, and had numerous conversations with men in these circumstances, I can tell you that what we consider a laughably low salary will go a long, long way in their native village.

Similar to how most Americans would be unwilling to work in the crop-picking industry at the wages many laborers earn on our farms.

curtisekarr said: Kant this is a point which I believe could be open for debate. I realize that their wages are low, and in some instances, they have to repay a loan taken out to land the job in the first place. But having worked as an expat in Saudi for many years, and had numerous conversations with men in these circumstances, I can tell you that what we consider a laughably low salary will go a long, long way in their native village.

Similar to how most Americans would be unwilling to work in the crop-picking industry at the wages many laborers earn on our farms.

If you have first-hand knowledge of these sorts of conversations, I'll defer to you. However, many of the stories (both in this article and elsewhere) suggest that those who want to go home are unable to.

I've worked as an adjunct faculty member, and so I know what exploitation is. I do not make this statement facetiously. Comparatively speaking, the wages paid for work rendered amount to exploitation. Now, it's not even close to the scale described by these day laborers, but the concept is the same. With that said, every time I have adjuncted I have known what I am getting into before hand. I know the salary, what is expected of me, etc. I can either accept or decline. The problem would be if I were to accept a position for 4,000/class and then, half-way through the semester, have the university tell me that they would only pay me 1,000/class.

That the wages are low is not the problem. It's the lying, misleading, and/or near-imprisoning that I am objecting to.

Yes desirable. A high paying job, cheap maids and slaves, and frequent parties. Who cares if you're in a desert when you can have that. As long as the world fills its gas tank with oil, it will be somewhat sustainable, but not to the same heights (although those who warn that oil is going back to $150/barrel would argue with that). When the bubble bursts, pack up and come home before the natives eat you.

Caleeefornia has a lot of oil just sitting around begging to be extracted. Maybe Arnold could allow some oil companies to drill for it and solve the State's so-called budget problem by actually charging them for the privilege to drill? Arnold could then set himself up like that Sheik in Dubai. Then us slaves wouldn't have to pay so many new taxes? Well it's just a thought.

I call bias on this article, and articles like it.

Why do I not see many articles on the happy, rainbow-filled side of Dubai's slave-based economy? Let's be fair and balanced people.

kantscholar said:
I've worked as an adjunct faculty member, and so I know what exploitation is.

Wow! I cannot believe an educated person wrote this statement. To even REMOTELY compare the adjunct faculty member/ tenured faculty dynamic to these dubai slaves situation is another reason the US is in a continued free fall off its ego-ladened economic cliff.

RushnRockt said: Did you read about all the laborers that companies brought in and abandoned without giving their passports back after having them labor in inhuman conditions?

Does anyone know what prevents those workers from just reporting their passports lost/stolen and getting replacements from their home country's embassy ?

Unfair exploitation of poor in Dubai? OMG is that really happenning?
Come on guys- don't play dumb. That's how every powerful country was built upon. US has a notorious history of slavary, so is every superpowers of Europe. And asia.
Good point is, hostorically, these maltreatements do not stand forever- sooner or later things will turn towards better direction, often via bloody confrontation.
By the way- this is my personal view- I think the whole middle east is a hellhole. There has to be someone to take down those filthy rich saudi seikhs and their societies. Then again- what is the last time have you heard anything against saudis from any G20 countries?

patch96 said: kantscholar said:
I've worked as an adjunct faculty member, and so I know what exploitation is.

Wow! I cannot believe an educated person wrote this statement. To even REMOTELY compare the adjunct faculty member/ tenured faculty dynamic to these dubai slaves situation is another reason the US is in a continued free fall off its ego-ladened economic cliff.

Did you even read the rest of my statement? Do you know what an analogy is?

Persons A and B both do manual labor. Person A works for whatever the standard rate is, let's say minimum wage in the US. Now, if someone in the US hires Person B, but says "You'll work for 1/5th of what is required by law, otherwise you and your family can starve." We would say that Person B is being exploited, and it's a term that is normally applied to migrant workers in the US.

I don't want to get into a discussion of adjunct faculty, but the comparison is similar. Administrators say, "You'll work for 3,000/course (even though no one can make a living on that). If you don't like it--too bad." By analogy, that is exploitation as well since the "standard rate" for college instruction is quite a bit higher.

As I said in my post, clearly the situation faced by migrant workers is much worse. However, just because certain people are making more than $2 an hour doesn't mean that they aren't being exploited as well. I apologize if you do not understand how analogies work.

2stepsbehind said:
From the amount of greens the post received I think it is fair to say that most understood the analogy you were making, but found it inapt or particularly in poor taste much like if a well-to-do teenager chimed in "I understand sacrifice; I told my parents they could get me a Honda instead of a BMW like all my friends" in a thread about joining the peace corp.

I've been on this board long enough to know why people get greens. This is hardly an argument against the fact that there are many members of many societies being exploited. The degree of the exploitation varies, but if exploitation is wrong then it is wrong in all instances.

Since you want to defend him, I'll defend my claim. A standard 35 person, 3 credit college class brings in about 100k (assuming ~1000/credit). Adjunct instructors are often paid between 2000-3000/course/semester. That's 2-3% of the amount of money being brought in less expenses. I was at the grocery store and the strawberries were selling for 2.50/pint. Grocery store margins are notoriously low. Assuming 10%, income to the grower was ~2.25 less expenses. At the same adjunct percentage, this would put the migrant berry picker at a pay of 0.045 to 0.07 cents a pint. This is actually surprisingly close to the amount of money migrant workers in this country get paid.

Can you explain to me why one situation is exploitation and why the other is not? That is my point. Exploitation is all around us and we all reap the benefits of it.

Surely all of this is our fault somehow.

brettdoyle said: Adjunct instructors have the freedom of not accepting the position, quitting their jobs, transfering to new schools, or even choosing a different career if they feel undercompensated.

Migrant workers from Dubai can't find a new job because their visa ties them to a job. They're worked 14 hours a day in 120 degree heat with no transportation and restricted where they're allowed to go... not exactly idea conditions for searching for new employment. They can't return home because they don't have the financial means and their employers stole their identification, which is required to leave the country.

My analogy was between exploited labor in the US and exploited labor in Dubai. I characterized labor in Dubai as slave labor for the reasons that you mention here and the reasons mentioned in the article you linked to. Slave labor is worse than simple exploitation by a great many orders of magnitude.

Some people on the forum then disputed whether or not the labor in Dubai was slave labor. They suggested that those individuals were free to leave whenever they wanted. My claim was even if what was going on in Dubai is exploitation and not slave labor, it is still unjust, our attention should be drawn to it, and they should rightly be criticized.

Finally, the point was made by analogy that Dubai is not the only country that relies on labor exploitation--we rely on it in this country. We rely on it in areas in widely recognized areas (agriculture, construction, etc.) and in some areas that aren't as widely recognized (e.g., academia).

I am not a bleeding heart liberal--check most of my posts on this forum. However, we should recognize what's going on around us. Perhaps there is nothing wrong with labor exploitation. What is wrong is what I've characterized as slave labor. An exploited worker can always quit his/her job, get another job, etc. This is just capitalism: supply and demand. That an employer can find someone to work for $1/hr to pick his strawberries just shows that the work of picking strawberries is worth only $1/hr.

If you accept this, then steps like eliminating the minimum wage, government welfare, and so forth are not too far behind. I am not arguing in favor or against these things, but it is important to recognize where the arguments/claims made by a number of the posters on here would lead.

Of course this is all a bit off-topic when it comes to what is going on in Dubai, but when we pass judgment on the policies of other nations, we should also examine our own and see whether we are violating the same standards that we want to hold others to.