By Dan Nolan
on July 28th, 2010
You can see their story here. Still no news as to when they might be given permission to leave or their 10 months of unpaid wages.
I've read a lot about the labour camps where the construction workers building Dubai’s dazzling skyline call home but until now, I'd never visited one.
It's virtually impossible to get permission to film inside these camps as they provide images you'll never see on any Dubai tourism brochure.
The only reason we could film the Jose Camp is because the company owner has fled the country leaving 38 workers in a hopeless situation.
You can see their story here:
Still no news as to when they might be given permission to leave or their 10 months of unpaid wages.
The defacto spokesperson for the group is 28-year-old Mohammed Ahktar, a quietly spoken labourer from the Punjab region of Pakistan.
He showed me around the camp which has had no electricity for two months meaning no air conditioning during a brutal desert summer where temperatures can hit 50 degrees Celsius.
When he told me they sleep "upstairs", I thought there was another level to the camp that I hadn't noticed at first.
But as we climbed a rickety ladder (made from 2 sections of a shipping crate nailed together) and stepped up onto the roof, it became clear what the "upstairs room" entailed.
More than a dozen mattresses were laid out on the corrugated iron roof competing for a spot of fresh air with satellite dishes that don't work anymore due to the power being cut off.
They say it's cool enough at night to at least get some sleep, I can only imagine how they survive the days bunkered down in their 3mx3m rooms housing seven people each.
It's a tough way to earn a $220 per month but there were few complaints while they were actually getting paid!
The UAE labour ministry says camps like this are exceptions NOT the norm and they've assisted more than 1,000 other abandoned workers to get some of their unpaid wages and a ticket home.
But the wheels of justice turn slowly - the guys from Jose camp registered their status in a UAE court in March and are yet to hear a thing.
In the meantime they survive on charity provided by a few caring individuals.
One of them is Saher Shaikh, a wealthy British-Pakistani mother of two, who somehow juggles raising children with caring for hundreds of workers.
She's not one to hunt praise for what she does (though she most certainly deserves it) but anyone wanting to support her work can do so via the AdoptaCamp Facebook page.
/////////////
Gulf downturn strands labourers
Gulf investors may have seen their investments shrink, but hundreds of foreign labourers in the United Arab Emirates are suffering a far worse fate as a result of the Dubai-centered economic bust.
Abandoned by companies that pulled up stakes in the downturn, hundreds have been left with no pay, confiscated passports and barely enough food to survive.
One camp in the emirate of Sharjah has had no electricity for two months, and the 38 men from Pakistan and Bangladesh who live there haven’t received their $220-per-month wage for 10 months.
Cramped conditions
According to Al Jazeera's Dan Nolan, the men live together in cramped rooms and take their mattresses onto the roof at night to escape the oppressive summer heat, which can reach 50 degrees Celsius.
The workers say their Indian employer has fled the country, and though they have registered their abandoned status with a court, they have only received new passports in return.
The UAE's labour ministry says the problem is an isolated one.
"The total number affected is a few hundred workers out of 1.9 million workers in the construction industry," Humaid bin Dimas, the ministry's general manager, told Al Jazeera. "There are about 50,000 companies in this sector. There is no such phenomenon."
Around 12 million foreign workers are estimated to live in the Gulf, where they are forbidden to form labour unions.
Some progress on workers' rights has been achieved, and the labour laws on the books in certain countries, including the UAE, does technically protect workers, Azfar Khan, a senior migration specialist at the International Labour Organisation, told Al Jazeera.
But such laws often are not enforced due to "policy incoherence", Khan said, especially in the UAE, where workers in different industries are covered by different sets of laws.
Still, the promise of higher wages seems likely to continue luring laborers to the Gulf. But the abandoned workers in the Sharjah camp say they want to return.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/07/201072885146573166.html
on July 28th, 2010
You can see their story here. Still no news as to when they might be given permission to leave or their 10 months of unpaid wages.
I've read a lot about the labour camps where the construction workers building Dubai’s dazzling skyline call home but until now, I'd never visited one.
It's virtually impossible to get permission to film inside these camps as they provide images you'll never see on any Dubai tourism brochure.
The only reason we could film the Jose Camp is because the company owner has fled the country leaving 38 workers in a hopeless situation.
You can see their story here:
Still no news as to when they might be given permission to leave or their 10 months of unpaid wages.
The defacto spokesperson for the group is 28-year-old Mohammed Ahktar, a quietly spoken labourer from the Punjab region of Pakistan.
He showed me around the camp which has had no electricity for two months meaning no air conditioning during a brutal desert summer where temperatures can hit 50 degrees Celsius.
When he told me they sleep "upstairs", I thought there was another level to the camp that I hadn't noticed at first.
But as we climbed a rickety ladder (made from 2 sections of a shipping crate nailed together) and stepped up onto the roof, it became clear what the "upstairs room" entailed.
More than a dozen mattresses were laid out on the corrugated iron roof competing for a spot of fresh air with satellite dishes that don't work anymore due to the power being cut off.
They say it's cool enough at night to at least get some sleep, I can only imagine how they survive the days bunkered down in their 3mx3m rooms housing seven people each.
It's a tough way to earn a $220 per month but there were few complaints while they were actually getting paid!
The UAE labour ministry says camps like this are exceptions NOT the norm and they've assisted more than 1,000 other abandoned workers to get some of their unpaid wages and a ticket home.
But the wheels of justice turn slowly - the guys from Jose camp registered their status in a UAE court in March and are yet to hear a thing.
In the meantime they survive on charity provided by a few caring individuals.
One of them is Saher Shaikh, a wealthy British-Pakistani mother of two, who somehow juggles raising children with caring for hundreds of workers.
She's not one to hunt praise for what she does (though she most certainly deserves it) but anyone wanting to support her work can do so via the AdoptaCamp Facebook page.
/////////////
Gulf downturn strands labourers
Gulf investors may have seen their investments shrink, but hundreds of foreign labourers in the United Arab Emirates are suffering a far worse fate as a result of the Dubai-centered economic bust.
Abandoned by companies that pulled up stakes in the downturn, hundreds have been left with no pay, confiscated passports and barely enough food to survive.
One camp in the emirate of Sharjah has had no electricity for two months, and the 38 men from Pakistan and Bangladesh who live there haven’t received their $220-per-month wage for 10 months.
Cramped conditions
According to Al Jazeera's Dan Nolan, the men live together in cramped rooms and take their mattresses onto the roof at night to escape the oppressive summer heat, which can reach 50 degrees Celsius.
The workers say their Indian employer has fled the country, and though they have registered their abandoned status with a court, they have only received new passports in return.
The UAE's labour ministry says the problem is an isolated one.
"The total number affected is a few hundred workers out of 1.9 million workers in the construction industry," Humaid bin Dimas, the ministry's general manager, told Al Jazeera. "There are about 50,000 companies in this sector. There is no such phenomenon."
Around 12 million foreign workers are estimated to live in the Gulf, where they are forbidden to form labour unions.
Some progress on workers' rights has been achieved, and the labour laws on the books in certain countries, including the UAE, does technically protect workers, Azfar Khan, a senior migration specialist at the International Labour Organisation, told Al Jazeera.
But such laws often are not enforced due to "policy incoherence", Khan said, especially in the UAE, where workers in different industries are covered by different sets of laws.
Still, the promise of higher wages seems likely to continue luring laborers to the Gulf. But the abandoned workers in the Sharjah camp say they want to return.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/07/201072885146573166.html
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