preview

Migrant Workers

Better Essays
Open Document

Migrant Workers Behind the scenes of technological advancements, a glitzy city’s beautiful architecture, are universally exploited migrant workers. Seeking leave from the poverty they face back home under another country’s walls, their presence is something to be ‘justified’. Under contractual sponsorship, their presence can be validated, and have dodge deportation. Departing from their community back home to assist as domestic workers in someone else’s, migrant workers live under an affirmation that their work, their people, are an importable commodity. The system which enables these conditions, the kafala system, or sponsorship, creates a binding agreement between a kafeel, or sponsor, and foreign workers. The terms are disproportionately …show more content…

The recruiting process starts off in the worker’s country, via an agency, which, in UAE’s case, has to handle costs related to the worker’s recruitment. With the promise of UAE’s labor laws, no cost of airfare, work visa to be paid by their sponsor, and the beautiful country itself, the compromise is made, often driven by a need to make money for family back …show more content…

“In Dubai’s two largest camps, Al Quoz and Sonapor, the typical dwelling is a small room of 12 by 9 feet which sleeps as many as 8 workers” (as cited in Human Rights Watch 2009, 23). They often lack proper sanitation and drainage, and these conditions are prevalent in even the largest of construction firms. In 2009, Arabtec was exposed to have disdainfully filthy conditions, including raw sewage waste, and no running toilet water within the overcrowded labor camp. The government takes a large role in furthering the migrant workers marginalization, In Sara Hamza’s research on “Migrant Labor in the Arabian Gulf,” the government takes a hand in restricting migrant workers from in-city housing, “when a construction firm in Dubai headed by a European family decided to house its employees in villas in the Jumeirah area, officials from the municipality evicted the workers and encouraged them to find housing in a labor camp” (as cited in Ali 2010, 93). Migrant workers are extremely domesticated in the Gulf countries, in the UAE and Qatar, an 80% of the population are expatriates, with citizenship awarded on the basis that a person is fluent in Arabic, and has lived in the country for over 20 years. It is not guaranteed that citizenship is awarded, no matter how well-off the person

Get Access