Hacker News Reader

Comment by krasin | Hacker News Reader

Qatar is one of a few countries which have an exit visa. These workers (en masse) could not leave the country, even if they want. So, yeah, they are slaves.

http://www.moi.gov.qa/PermitForm/PermitFormE.jsp

View on HN

I read something a couple of years ago about the phenomenon of expats fleeing Dubai after the economic downturn because of the Emirates' harsh treatment of debtors (no bankruptcy, pay up or be jailed). Supposedly, it was common for people to just abandon their cars at the airport and high tail it out of town, never to return. I just found a delightful article highlighting the phenomenon of swanky luxury cars being abandoned at the airport or on the streets. I suspect that this is the main justification for the imposition of an exit visa. But of course the upshot is probably that British financiers end up fleeing their debts anyway, while poor Bangladeshis suffer indentured servitude.

http://www.messynessychic.com/2013/05/21/so-in-dubai-the-amo...

You're a bit muddled up here. Tinpots dictatorships of various flavours have required exit visas for years, sometimes even for their own citizens, but Dubai/the UAE does not and has not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_%28document%29#Exit_visas

Exit visas? Wow I never knew such a thing could exist. If you are a citizen of a country you should always be allowed to travel to that country unless you're arrested for committing a crime elsewhere.

It is a way to check you before you leave. Like a security guard checking your bag before you leave a store. Do you owe money, have legal trouble, etc. I am not saying it is right but that is how it is viewed.

Philippines has one. They treat you like criminal when you try to leave.

Seriously, kids. You don't remember the good old days?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_Soviet_Unio...

Otherwise, (local politics, human rights aside) one shouldn't cross a frontier without considering the risk of being denied permission to come out again. Whims, national and personal, abound. Check in with your consulate -- remotely, if possible -- if that'll make you feel better.

And I'm not even pararnoid. Been there, done that. (The international travel, and jobs/labor (on and off the books) when it could be scary, that is.)

Crapshoot always. The odds change. Do the math.

Not to belittle desperate migration in search of a better life.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com