Comment by babul | Hacker News Reader

Comment by babul | Hacker News Reader

Quick thoughts...

Much of this (debtors prisons [and people fleeing Dubai immediately upon losing jobs and leaving behind luxury cars/apartments to avoid it], modern day enslavement, under-classes [predominantly based on ethnicity] and lack of civil-rights and liberty for most classes) has been publicised for a long time among the ethnic communities.

However, it seems when times were good it was easy for western people to turn a blind eye and what most people saw in the mainstream western media were positive articles about how great Dubai was/would be (due to vested interests?), even ignoring obvious issues regarding Arab law and culture and environment.

Now that the worldwide financial crisis is catching up with Dubai it is good to see these issues being brought out into the mainstream and exposed more openly, but I cannot help but think it is predominately because Westerners themselves are now being affected. Where was the outcry for the Fillipinos/Bangladeshis/etc. in mainstream Western media before?

You're right: we didn't care about the Filipinos and Bangaladeshis being mistreated in Dubai - until westerners started getting mistreated.

Yet this very same mistreatment occurs in Saudi Arabia (one of the places I've lived in), and we continue to ignore it. My suspicion is that we need their oil far more than we need justice.

A recent HN thread on Dubai: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=547553

And here is an article by some folks in Dubai that they need to diversify away from oil: http://www.business24-7.ae/articles/2009/4/pages/05042009/04...

Would like to add that paying $2/day is not mistreatment. Mistreatment is promissing someone $200/day and then paying him $150.

We very frequenty mix up slavery with low salary job. An artist being contracted by a label company for $5 million is a slave of some form. The person who works for $5 / day but has the freedom to choose to work or not is a free man with all his wills.

If there is a demand for $2/day workers and there is a supply for $2 workers, not allowing it because the goverment is not happy with it seems mistreatment to me.

Everyone should have a free will and everyone should have the right to work at any rate.

My view.

I don't mean to condone the modern slavery in Dubai in any way, but isn't it telling about the conditions in Bangladesh and the Philippines that people volontary leave them to go to the UAE and be treated like dirt.

From the article it seems the foreign workers are given false information before coming to Dubai, and then their passports are taken (and/or payment withheld) so they can't leave.

That's exactly what happens. The "travel agencies" that give this false information are like scouts, they constantly hunt for poor people who will fall for this. It is common sight at the New Delhi international airport to see workers going abroad in batches. Most of these people have never been out of their villages before. They sit on the floor in groups and are moved through the security procedure by a "manager" like a herd of sheep. They all seem happy and filled with hope.

It's a global scam where the idea is to make money out of slavery and ensuring profit to every person in the chain, from the sheikh to the so called "travel agencies" and take away the right to complain from the only people who may complain.

Oh, stupid me, didn't take into that into the calculation.

The things is that I wrote a school paper years ago on the UAE and back then it wasn't exactly a hidden fact that many workers on the massive construction projects were treated badly.

But then I forgot that not everyone has access to the internet and/or reads human rights reports.

Shame on me.

"treated badly" does not even approximate the meaning of "indentured servitude". Having slaves is unforgivable. Oddly enough, isn't the UEA in the Human Rights Commission that wanted to ban free speech if it offends a religion?

A larger part of the problem is that the prevailing custom in that part of the middle east is that contracts are not binding on the natives. They're binding on the foreigners, but there is nothing you can hold the native to. Furthermore, the Arabic language version of the contract is the prevailing one, and the foreign language version is meaningless, should it end up in court.

This seems like a problem in China also - the lack of the rule of law. In the ME it seems this is government sanctioned, whereas in China this is due to rampant corruption.

Either way, the rule of law is absolutely essential to continued economic growth - both countries will run into a brick wall if they don't get their act together. China seems to be reducing corruption and trying to restore investor confidence... the UAE doesn't seem to be doing much of anything.

You must be a blast at parties.

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