![]() Those interviewed for Equidem's report were primarily from India and Pakistan, attracted by average salaries of $300 a month, along with room and board. Several told of plunging into debt over high recruiting fees. Others were fired without warning and got stranded in the UAE. Some were deprived of their identification documents, unable to change jobs or leave the country. Workers described going hungry as employers withheld up to five months of wages and termination benefits. They’re among millions from poor countries who come to Gulf Arab sheikhdoms to create massive government projects and serve small local populations as construction and domestic workers, janitors, cooks, garbage collectors and guards.Įquidem documented multiple cases of abuse at Expo’s construction site when the pandemic began. Thousands of low-wage laborers from Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, barred from forming unions, toil up to 70 hours a week at Expo, living in crowded, dormitory-style housing, according to the workers and labor rights researchers. Most workers interviewed by the AP spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of losing their jobs after Expo officials warned them against talking to journalists. “If I had known, I never would have come,” said Mohammed, who asked to be identified by only his first name because he feared reprisals. He said the Abu Dhabi-based contractor that sponsored his work visa appeared to have no idea he had paid a small fortune to recruiters, a common practice in the UAE despite a government ban.įor six months of work, he would make less than what he paid to get the job. When he arrived, however, Mohammed learned he was to earn as little as $190 a month, and the promised food was undercooked rice and sausage he couldn't stomach, forcing him to buy meals. The agent assured him that he’d make that back in no time. But to get the job, he’d have to pay a fee of $1,150, using years of savings. A ceramic-tile salesman in Ghana, he’d dreamed of life in the skyscraper-studded cities of the Persian Gulf and the chance to send badly needed cash to his parents and six brothers and sisters.Ī recruiter in Ghana's southern city of Kumasi had promised him over $500 a month, including food and housing, Mohammed said. Mohammed, 27, is among scores of workers who clean the fairgrounds eight hours a day. The UAE called the resolution “factually incorrect," without elaborating.Įmirati authorities did not respond to the AP's repeated requests for comment. ![]() “In such cases we work with a contractor to move workers to adequate accommodation facilities.”Ĭiting labor abuses at Expo and other human rights concerns, the European Parliament has urged a boycott of the event. “Some cases have been identified where accommodation facilities have been found to not be in line with UAE legal requirements,” it added. It said authorities have “worked directly with contractors to remedy both immediately.” When questioned by The Associated Press, Expo organizers did not comment but referred to their previous statement in response to Equidem’s report, saying Expo takes worker welfare “extremely seriously” and requires all contractors to comply with standards “formulated from international best practice.”Įxpo's statement acknowledged the workers' “most regularly raised topics of concern” involved “wage payments and food,” without elaborating. ![]() “You can have the best standards in the world, but if you have this inherent power imbalance, workers are in a situation where they’re at risk of exploitation all the time,” said Mustafa Qadri, executive director of Equidem Research, a labor rights consultancy that recently reported on the mistreatment of Expo workers during the pandemic. ![]() It relies on complicated chains of foreign subcontracts, ties workers’ residency to their jobs and gives outsized power to employers.Īmong the complaints are workers having to pay exorbitant and illegal fees to local recruiters in order to work at the world's fair employers confiscating their passports broken promises on wages crowded and unsanitary living conditions in dormitories substandard or unaffordable food and up to 70-hour workweeks in sometimes brutal heat. Yet according to human rights groups and interviews with over two dozen workers, violations have persisted, underpinned by the UAE's labor sponsorship system. ![]()
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