LUXURY developments on artificial islands in the Arabian Sea, where highly paid British footballers own holiday homes worth £700,000, are being built by migrant workers earning as little as £3 a day.

 

The Palm Jumeirah, off the coast of Dubai, has been designed in the shape of a palm tree with 1,500 opulent villas and 30 beachfront hotels, including one under construction by Donald Trump, the American entrepreneur.

 

David Beckham is among the stars who have bought substantial properties there. They will soon be enjoying attractions ranging from scuba diving to a “golden mile†of restaurants and shops, secure in the knowledge that they are protected from paparazzi by the strict privacy laws of Dubai, the most populous of the seven states that make up the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

 

But less than four miles from the resort stands the bleak desert camp of Jebel Ali, a sprawl of breeze-block huts and battered trailers where about 10,000 construction workers — including many from the Palm Jumeirah — are crammed into stifling dormitories at the end of the day.

 

They sleep up to 15 to a room, each with a flimsy bunk bed, a thin mattress and dirty, bug-rid-den sheets. They cook their paltry meals on mini-stoves and squat on the ground to eat. One resident spoke of a strike four months ago over a shortage of lavatories.

 

The conditions reflect the meagre wages for a working week of six and often seven days. Many of the men believed the assurances of recruiters in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh that they would make enough money to support their poverty-stricken families back home, but have since become trapped in a spiral of debt and despair.

 

The government of the UAE was accused by Human Rights Watch last year of presiding over abuses ranging from low and unpaid wages to deaths and injuries caused by poor health and safety procedures. But little appears to have changed.

 

Dubai has the first seven-star hotel and will soon have the world’s tallest building, the Burj Dubai, which is expected to reach 2,650ft. About 700,000 Britons visit Dubai each year and celebrities reported to have expressed an interest in property include Michael Schumacher, the former Formula One racing champion, and the singers Rod Stewart and Michael Jackson.

 

The sheer scale of construction by an estimated 300,000 migrants working for 6,000 companies has allowed unscrupulous recruitment agencies and employers to mistreat them.

 

And we complain about our minimum wage?

I've been fascinated by Dubai for years... it's a sort of forced development at the hands of migrants. They are able to build gigantic skyscrapers for 10% of what the same building might cost in London or New York, mainly because of cheap and illegal labor. The projects there are simply astounding, from 150 story skyscrapers to remarkable man-made island resorts to the world's first underwater hotel to a 100 billion dollar amusement park which promises to be ten times the size of Disney World... and yet it's all forced development from a centralist, oil-rich government. And the migrants there live in APPALLING poverty - not to mention their passports are confiscated and their labor is totally illegal and sickening.

 

Still, it makes you wonder for just a moment... projects like Wembly or Millennium Dome in London cost BILLIONS of pounds, take 30 years to develop, experience massive delays and cost overruns.... it makes you almost admire Dubai for the way it can accomplish its breathtaking projects.

Edited March 26, 200718 yr by Consie

A disgusting regime, clearly every bit as oppressive as Saddam Hussein's and yet we say sod all about it, on the contrary, we seem to be encouraging what amounts to nothing more than slavery... The hypocrisy of the West again knows no bounds.... <_<

 

Okay, they get the buildings built, but at an unnacceptable cost to the workers.. Would we tolerate this if it were happening to white Europeans or Americans..? Hell no, we'd bloody well send in the troops to initiate "regime change"....

 

The evil of Capitalism.... Should be obvious for all to see...

There was a really good, extensive article on Dubai in a recent issue of the National Geographic. Lets just say I don't think workers' rights are top of their priority list there. <_<