Opinions | City Talk
Discrimination mars shopping experience in multicultural city
Race, gender, age or religion - the traits that characterises us as individuals are also the things that make others discriminate against us.
- By Mariam M. Al Serkal, Rayeesa Absal, Staff Reporters
- Published: 00:34 April 20, 2008
Dubai/Abu Dhabi: Race, gender, age or religion - the traits that characterises us as individuals are also the things that make others discriminate against us.
During the first National Identity Conference that was held last week in Abu Dhabi, it was announced that 150 nationalities make up for more than 80 per cent of the population.
The people who make up this society, be it nationals or expatriates, each have their own prejudices and subjective ideas against people that are based on race, gender or age.
In a recent Gulf News poll, 72 per cent said they have been discriminated against by a salesperson when shopping while the remaining 28 per cent said they were not.
City Talk took to the streets and asked residents if they have ever been discriminated against by a salesperson when shopping and whether or not they filed a complaint to the management.
Sales manager Liaquat Ali, 27, from Kashmir, India, said: "I have been living here for the past four years and have never encountered any problems from salespeople. I don't usually go to shopping centres and try to avoid the very big shops, so the places that I do go to already know me and treat me quite well because they know that in order to succeed in your business, you have to treat customers well."
Joey Anicete, an administrator assistant, from the Philippines, 33, said: "I was discriminated against by people who were from my own country.
"All I wanted to do was to ask for the price of a coat and the shop attendant blatantly took me for granted, ignored my question and attended to the next customer.
"I never went back to that shop again and did not even bother complaining to the manager because I knew it would not have made any difference to the shop attendant's attitude."
Abdul Ademoh, a graduate in information technology from Nigeria, 23, said: "It happened to me with a customer service representative at a bank while I was still a student.
"The salesman kept trying to encourage me to get a student master card and sat with me for a long time while explaining what papers I needed and the procedure to go about it.
"But when he found out where I was from, his attitude changed and he did not want to sell me the card anymore. I tried calling him afterwards and he refused to respond."
Sales manager Haider Al Hashimi, from Iraq, 36, said: "My family and I have never encountered any problems of discrimination. All the sales people I have met have always been fairly polite and interested in doing their job efficiently and well. I have always felt respected wherever I went."
Andrea D'Souza, a marketing executive from India, 22, said: "I have never been discriminated against in shops but I usually find myself being offended by taxi drivers who do not bother to give me the time of day. A taxi driver would see me standing and drive past me, only to stop a few metres ahead for a Western person instead. I feel that the taxi drivers do not stop when I flag them down because of my ethnicity."
Mohammad Saleem, 23, a customer service representative from India, said: "I find that when the salesperson does not understand you, they want to kick you out of their shop immediately.
"On several occasions, I have found it very difficult to communicate with Arab salesmen who cannot speak a word of English.
"They communicate with their hands and tell me to go away, and they do not even bother to be polite. They just simply do not want to talk at all."
M.S. Hussain, a 56-year-old Indian video editor in Ras Al Khaimah, said: "I think people do consider certain nationalities to be rich and educated though this is far from the truth. A person may be dressed shabbily or choose not to wear a designer watch or dress but still be a sophisticated person ... but not many understand this. "I have experienced it several times but never complained officially."
Sufana Hassan, a 21-year-old college student from India, said: "I wear both traditional Indian dress as well as western clothes and I have experienced the change in the attitude of salespersons several times."
Ruweina Oba, 32, a Filipina working as a telephone operator, said: "I have never been discriminated against by a salesperson. I think it is all about the person who is shopping."
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