UAE | Employment
'Sensationalist and not based on facts'
The headline of the HRW report, Building towers, cheating workers is sensationalist and without substantiated evidence.
- Duraid Al Braik, Foreign Editor
- Published: 23:35 May 3, 2009
Dubai: The headline of the HRW report, Building towers, cheating workers is sensationalist and without substantiated evidence.
Interviewing 60 workers to prove exploitation in the construction sector - which employees at least 500,000 workers, is not fair. The report failed to point out the responsibilities of the governments of countries exporting workers to the UAE towards their workers before they depart from their respective countries.
The report blamed the UAE for charging workers huge sums of money for visas by recruiters in their own countries, which is out of UAE jurisdiction.
Action taken by the UAE government to improve workers' conditions were not reflected in the report.
Pictures being used to illustrate what the HRW termed as exploitation of migrant construction workers in the UAE failed to prove the said exploitation.
The report highlighted five areas where it believes exploitation is taking place, including the recruitment process, unpaid wages, low wages, and safety and health hazards.
The report did not compare between workers' benefits in the UAE and in their original countries and the fact that there is no minimum wage in labour exporting countries.
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