Analysis
Slavery behind closed doors in the Gulf monarchies
The International Labour Conference is taking place in Geneva at the moment, with some 3000 delegates from 178 countries. The agenda is the same as it has been for many years now: establishing the extent to which labour norms are respected. We already know that hundreds of speeches will be made about the violation of workers' rights in Palestine. On the other hands, some topics will never make it to the limelight. Or if they do, they will fall victim to political doublespeak.
However, today, as never before, the rights of millions of workers in desperate situations are overlooked. Whereas the Gulf countries are showing record-beating incomes due to the rise in oil prices, this economic prosperity only benefits a few people. This minority is eager to spend its money on itself and makes no contribution to improving the standard of living of the people who helped them make such profit in the first place.
In the United Arab Emirates, a country with more than 4 million inhabitants (less than 20 percent of which are natives), the government restricts the right to protest, even when it is in favour of the government. In spite of this, hundreds of Indian workers decided to challenge the regime and blocked the main road connecting the countries' two biggest cities, namely Dubai and Abu Dhabi. This was the first time anything like this had happened in the history of the Gulf monarchies'. The protestors asked for a decent life, humane labour conditions and a fair wage.
Asian workers' lives have never been harder. Those to whom exile appeals for economic reasons (generally Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Bangladeshi or Philippines) either get into debt or sell their family jewellery in order to be able to afford the services of a local agency which recruits people on behalf of the Gulf monarchies.
As soon as they arrive, their dream turns into a nightmare. Immigrants are forced to give up their passports. And because of this, leaving the country, changing employers or protesting becomes prohibited. They live packed in small insalubrious rooms, six or twelve of them together, or under tents. They work in the blazing sun, nine to ten hours a day on average. They aren't allowed to take breaks, are obliged to do unpaid overtime and have no social or medical insurance.
Who hasn't heard of the Bordj El-Arab, a dream hotel where you can pay up to 5000 Swiss francs a night? Well, the Indian bricklayer's or the Pakistani tiler's monthly pay doesn't amount to more than 300 francs. Salaries aren't based on a collective agreement, on a wage scale, or on the labour market, but on decisions made by the wealthy, influential minority.
In an Abu Dhabi newspaper, a Sri-Lankan dressmaker talks about how her factory was suddenly shut down and her co-workers haven't seen a dime in five months. The editor of another paper was abruptly sacked for refusing to write an article justifying the way construction workers are being treated.
As recently as 2003, Human Rights Watch has accused the UAE of "building their prosperity on forced labour". Moreover, the humiliations that immigrant workers have to endure are no secret. Let me remind you that when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the foreign workers were the only ones who weren't provided with gas masks. After that, while many of their employers were feeling bored in their palaces in Europe, close to one million penniless Bangladeshi cooks, drivers, and cleaning ladies, whose passports had been taken away, had to endure not only the atrocities brought upon them by Saddam's soldiers, but also the intense bombardments of the Americans with their B-52s.
Fair labour rights are above all the completion of an internal process, as has been the case in Poland or South Africa. But in countries where creating an association or a union is synonymous with plotting against the king, such a process cannot take place. The ILO union delegate is just another official state employee. It is said that only the United States have set a condition to signing a free trade deal with the Emirates. The condition was that the labour code has to be amended, and unions as well as political parties must be allowed.
Asian states promote emigration because of the economic gain they can expect from the money transactions made by their nationals. However, they do not seem concerned by their people's fate, or are unable to improve it. If this is true, then it is up to the ILO to put pressure on these states so that they accept the presence of representatives of foreign workers' interests, who could give a free account of what the situation is really like. It is about time that the ILO put into practice its own principles established in 1998 which are: the right to associate, the recognition of the right to negotiate, as well as the abolition of forced or mandatory labour in any form, thereby denouncing this new form of slavery taking place behind closed doors. It is a matter of honour for the Organisation.
-- Hasni Abidi,
Director
Translated into English by Marguerite Cornu, Research Assistant Trainee
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- Origin CERMAM
- http://www.cermam.org/en/logs/analysis/slavery_behind_closed_doors_in/
- Publié le 9 June 2006