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The Slaves of Dubai

post #1 of 21
9/1/09 at 2:00am
Thread Starter 
Found this really interesting 15 minute mini-documentary on the slave-like conditions that Indian construction workers in Dubai are facing. They are lured to Dubai under false pretenses, have their passports confiscated, are locked into long-term contracts, living in squalid labor camps that are isolated and off limits to the public, and earning maybe $100-$200 a month. They're forced to work 6 days a week, 14 hours a day in blistering heat, typically they get 6 holidays a year. http://www.vbs.tv/watch/vbs-news/the-slaves-of-dubai
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post #2 of 21
9/1/09 at 2:23am
They're not working those hours anymore. Most recent report I read stated that something like 60% are sitting around all day. Dubai's economy is at a standstill.
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post #3 of 21
9/1/09 at 2:27am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by unjung View Post
They're not working those hours anymore. Most recent report I read stated that something like 60% are sitting around all day. Dubai's economy is at a standstill.
Yeah, but they're also withheld their wages for months at a time and refusing to tell them whats going on. Most of them probably don't know there's a recession occurring. These people live in total isolation, no TV or internet, they're largely illiterate, and in a country where it's illegal to say there's a recession going on as it runs afoul of a law against "publishing anything that would hurt the economy." They're still being forced to work in inhumane conditions. In response to some of the complaints that have been raised over the years by Human Rights Groups, they passed a law saying workers are supposed to take stop work if it's over 50 degrees celcius outside. However, the government gets around this by lying about the temperature and simply never officially reporting at temperature above 49 degrees celcius
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post #4 of 21
9/1/09 at 2:33am
There was a GREAT investigative article written about this months ago. It's much worse than you think. google for it.
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post #5 of 21
9/1/09 at 3:01am
Thread Starter 
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Originally Posted by stylesmurf View Post
There was a GREAT investigative article written about this months ago. It's much worse than you think. google for it.

Are you referring to the expose that was ran by The Independent?

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion...i-1664368.html
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post #6 of 21
9/1/09 at 10:55am
The maniacal building in Dubai has always confounded me. What Westerner would want to plop down money for a home or business in that area of the world in the first place.

I'm sure Dubai is more moderate than its Arab brethren, but there are still Draconian regarding what women can do and behavior in general.
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post #7 of 21
9/1/09 at 11:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by HORNS View Post
The maniacal building in Dubai has always confounded me. What Westerner would want to plop down money for a home or business in that area of the world in the first place.

And everything there is so tacky. It makes Vegas look like Cape Cod. I wonder what Label King thinks on the matter? Is the decadence so extreme that it comes full circle into quasi-respectabilty?
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post #8 of 21
9/1/09 at 11:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by HORNS View Post
The maniacal building in Dubai has always confounded me. What Westerner would want to plop down money for a home or business in that area of the world in the first place. I'm sure Dubai is more moderate than its Arab brethren, but there are still Draconian regarding what women can do and behavior in general.
I lived in Abu Dhabi for a few months in 2007, when things were absolutely roaring. Everyone was employed and the people already there were constantly being poached by other companies for even higher salaries. Restaurants and bars were always full with new places opening all the time. Everyone, everywhere, conversed in English and your country of origin didn't matter. It felt, in a way, like the future. All of that is overlooking the near-slave class that certainly does exist, but I'm just speaking to what people may like about it. It really is a unique place, and its modernity is remarkable, especially compared to neighboring Saudi Arabia where I lived both before and after Abu Dhabi. Dubai is more or less the Singapore of the middle east.
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post #9 of 21
9/1/09 at 12:25pm
Very interesting reading. You have to know these things are happening, but it's also worth remembering that most of the current "first worlds" got to where they are because they did exploit people and resources of "third worlds". Definitely doesn't make anything right, but you can't judge a place too harshly that's following a model you yourself used only ~4-5 generations earlier.
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post #10 of 21
9/1/09 at 12:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by FidelCashflow View Post
Found this really interesting 15 minute mini-documentary on the slave-like conditions that Indian construction workers in Dubai are facing.

They are lured to Dubai under false pretenses, have their passports confiscated, are locked into long-term contracts, living in squalid labor camps that are isolated and off limits to the public, and earning maybe $100-$200 a month. They're forced to work 6 days a week, 14 hours a day in blistering heat, typically they get 6 holidays a year.

http://www.vbs.tv/watch/vbs-news/the-slaves-of-dubai

While it may sound terrible, what is the alternatives for these people back at home?

Starving to death?
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post #11 of 21
9/1/09 at 12:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Syl View Post
Very interesting reading. You have to know these things are happening, but it's also worth remembering that most of the current "first worlds" got to where they are because they did exploit people and resources of "third worlds". Definitely doesn't make anything right, but you can't judge a place too harshly that's following a model you yourself used only ~4-5 generations earlier.
We're still using the model. Soon you will realise you are a slave as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lee_44106 View Post
While it may sound terrible, what is the alternatives for these people back at home? Starving to death?
hahhaha, yeh, that's it. Save the poor by enslaving them.
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post #12 of 21
9/1/09 at 12:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Syl View Post
Very interesting reading. You have to know these things are happening, but it's also worth remembering that most of the current "first worlds" got to where they are because they did exploit people and resources of "third worlds". Definitely doesn't make anything right, but you can't judge a place too harshly that's following a model you yourself used only ~4-5 generations earlier.

Well, that's the damn truth.

BTW, is that your kitteh in your avatar?
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post #13 of 21
9/1/09 at 1:23pm
yeah dubai is sort of like the middle east's hong kong. they're a bit more open to entrepreneurship, relatively welcoming to foreigners, and as someone mentioned, wildly futuristic and there is a thriving grey-black market where you can get anything you want, from labor slaves to sex slaves to moroccan blond hashish to italian sports cars
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post #14 of 21
9/1/09 at 1:29pm
Creekside by the spice souk white ppl's oasis @Marina, Al Jumeirah the making of super Vegas/Disney arabian-style at sweltering, meth speed. @op__ it's not that simply. it's hard to explain to westerners who are not exposed to the realities of the third world. as in a pecking order, they represent the "scavengers" of a safari "kill". the hunters plan, execute the takedown, and as to be expected, come off with their [lion's share]. spoils to the victors while the rest is all about varying levels of cleaning up [as consolation]. life is a jungle.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Syl View Post
Very interesting reading. You have to know these things are happening, but it's also worth remembering that most of the current "first worlds" got to where they are because they did exploit people and resources of "third worlds". Definitely doesn't make anything right, but you can't judge a place too harshly that's following a model you yourself used only ~4-5 generations earlier.
even the White House__ i agree. most of the wonders we see and admire today were obsessions of [megalomaniac] madmen. eg, Taj Mahal, the Great Wall, Hagia Sophia, pyramids, etc. not that i'm placing Dubai to that level, i'm just saying the [practice] is not at all new.
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post #15 of 21
9/1/09 at 1:29pm
Even at its best it sounded awful.

This is the future we have to look forward to, garish and pretentious, superficial and sand-choked, built on the backs of misery in plain sight.

Progress.
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