Well, why not? Magnificent buildings line the streets rising higher to the sky than any others in the world. Novel man-made residential islands sprout off the beaches adding to the idea that advancements in this part of the world hyper exceed that of even the most popular tourist traps. Included in the construction are a metro system and airport that will surpass even the largest in the world.
Certainly not a country in the world can argue that Dubai literally exploded in the past 20 years from a desert to a city made of gold and fortune.
Dubai’s emanating wealth is that of the surprising financial genius of the Sheikh Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai. With his ingenuity and capital from the oil boom, he offered a city of leisure and financial services, tax-free. They came by the millions causing a construction frenzy to keep four steps ahead of the world in modernism and splendor.
As of the moment, there are more construction workers in Dubai than actual citizens…how so, you ask?
Slave labor.
How did you think it was done? A stringent application process with a vengeful HR lady calling your references? Drug testing and probationary periods?
It’s not the term that is used, of course, in the ever prosperous state but facts are facts, right? The politically correct term (at least in affluent Dubai circles) would be the ‘foreign underclass’.
Remember that this isn’t a government with democratic law like ours. Or even a family-power that has the people’s welfare in their best interest…unless, of course, those people are spending hundreds and thousands of their earnings in Dubai’s vast malls, attractions, hotels and boutiques.
Hundreds of thousands of men who left their families in other countries came to Dubai with the promise of an earning potential that would keep their families at home off the streets only to find hell and entrapment.
Passports are taken from these men by the companies that hire them, only to be returned when the ‘fees’ for their travel to Dubai are paid off, which takes years because of the payout they receive. The payout? …is usually about less than a quarter of what was offered when they were safe at home in their own countries.
They live in squander: triple-decker bunk beds, no air conditioning, toilets that are nothing more than holes in the corner of the room of their concrete cells and that’s not even mentioning the ‘work’ they do!
Since the world’s economy has taken a turn for the worse, the electricity has been turned off in the camps they call ‘home’ and the workers haven’t been paid in months. Construction companies have disappeared along with the hope that they will ever be able to go home. How can you when you have nothing? Not even a passport. The only reprieve that these men seek now is sweet death. Suicides are common in the camps and construction sites but, according to human rights groups are widely accepted as ‘accidents’ among the construction community in Dubai.
They come to Dubai on the promise of wealth but are treated worse than a rancher here would treat his cattle. My question-how does this happen? How do we let this happen? Not as the U.S. but as human-kind? Is there really no regard for the life of another?
And...what can you do?
Source.
Source 2.
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