To not get why people hate Dubai so much?

[Cutitup]

What is there to hate?

I think it's a great place to have a holiday. Great restaurants, great service, fab shopping and spa treatments.

I do understand the problems of domestic and construction staff being exploited but this is not a problem unique to Dubai. I just don't get the vitriol, the 'it has no culture' etc.. I say get out of the bitter farm and play with the hay!

I'm just a travel whore then - I'd consider most places unless my life was at risk. I'm definitely not as discerning as some.

Okay doak. Remember to avoid Bali too as the major hotels are built over the bodies of those killed in genocide, and so obviouisly avoid Indonesia too. Serbia is now becoming highly a popular tourist area but has a bit of a murky past what with all the war crimes and lits eaders who have yet to be taken to task for their part in genocide. And whoops, it gets more problematic in that Serbia's application to join the EU is in progress, which will have implications for the condonment by well, the rest of us in the EU if it succeeds. Not sure about Thailand of course as the trafficking tends to be located in Bangkok so can you get away with it if your just head for the islands? Austrailia has had a dodgy past for years in its treatment of its indiginous population and has recently told Asylum seekers (well the boat, ones, so perhaps also the poorest ones?) to do one and fuck off to for New Guinea instead.
Shaky lines in sand.

Are you being sarcastic? It isn't difficult to try to find out a bit about a place you fancy visiting to see if you run the risk of staying in a hotel built by bonded labourers (which may well go some way to explain why you can afford a level of luxury in that location that you otherwise couldn't).

Not everyone feels the need to go on holidays to 'exotic' destinations with dubious human rights records.

Is France alright? Or is that dodgy because they surrendered to the Germans? Or the Caribbean, which is populated by the direct progeny of African slaves? Nowhere is perfect, but it is very rare to see one place, so lauded and luxurious, where so much is wrong.

WRT to the argument that Dubai is a rich country and should treat labourers better.

1. It is improving. Let's not forget that Dubai is under 60 years old. Think of the atrocities handed out to peasants in England back in the 1400s. Which, coincidentally, is approximately the current year of the Islamic calendar.
2. The government does not set individual contracts. The contractors do. Some are better than others. I know of one workers' complex that houses thousands of employees from many different nations. It supplies food for each nationality, volleyball and cricket pitches, churches and mosques and free wifi for them to skype home. They also have giant rec rooms which supply free films from their home countries and access to a bar and recreation facilities such as table tennis and use of computers.

England has labour laws but these are flouted all the time by human traffickers who exploit poor people who flock here for a better life. There are many poor migrants who settle in England only to be treated worse than the labourers in Dubai. Cockles, anyone? I would also argue that the UAE has a better handle on who is in their country than Britain does. You can't sneeze in Dubai without someone knowing.

Dubai certainly has it's bling but it has to. It has no oil so it had to create a tourist industry to keep itself going. I admire the chutzpah of Dubai and the fact that they have created something out of nothing. Dubai was not built on the slave trade. It was built as a port city between East and West and just as gold diggers flocked to the Southern US, migrants flocked to the ME in search of their fortune. It does come at a price. All migrant workers have to pay a price in any market.

And, it might sound shallow but I would far rather have a pedicure in Dubai with skilled Filipina workers in a luxurious setting than have to settle with the shoddy offering of Nails Inc in a Debenhams where they don't even have decent facilities, running water or skilled technicians. I tip well and always have a chat. The workers have always seemed happy to me. I am just sad for them that they have had to leave their children at home to be cared for by grandparents. But that seems to be THEIR culture to work away for money to send home. At the very least, they are not stuck in godforsaken Saudi Arabia or Kuwait.

I believe it is almost impossible to shop or tour ethically these days without extreme effort. Dubai is just a scapegoat for promoting itself and any couch-judging and finger pointing is as a result of fury at the audaciousness of Dubai to have created a place where migrants want to work and where tourists want to go.

I'll bet if you asked sub-continent labourers if we should stop them all from going there, there would be a resounding "NO".

I say, Dubai - good for you. Just keep improving.

Here you go Dubai consumers.

I'm interested in you comments. I hope the posh hotel/pedicure was worth it.

www.vice.com/vice-news/the-slaves-of-dubai

For months, the BBC’s Ben Anderson hung out around the glittering, insane towers springing up in Dubai trying to infiltrate the community of expatriate workers who are putting them up. What he found when he finally got in was that the jewel of the Arab world is almost entirely built upon imported slave labor.

Beachcomber
Yes maybe a little, but human rights abuses are really rather common and again, I don't thiink Dubai is a lone star. BTW, it is worth pointing out that the contruction contractors are in the main Indians, as in they recruit, they ship the guys over, they maintain the accomodation, they pay the staff or don't and they keep the passports. It was not legally required to keep passports, it was just not illegal to keep them. Actually, DH has just said that he's pretty certain that it is now illegal. But in any case, Indians were being cunts to Indians. I agree that the Dubai government should prevent it, but it is not the government that is doing it. And this does also happen pretty much anywhere outside Europe and the Anglosphere. People are cunts to people. A lot.

Again, if you do your research and avoid visiting those places that you think are dubious, and have a clean ethical record, then all power to you. As far as it being easy to research, perhaps to some but clearly not for others and there is a lot of shit going on in the world.

Portofino
Not getting your logic. The examples I gave are where the abuses occurred under current leaders, not historical. If I were to start on the histrorical abuses then we might as well all fuck off off this island now, as we Brits were the worst of the lot

The money that initially built Dubai came from mainly from money laundering - drugs and sex trafficking.

All migrant workers have to pay a price in any market.

There aren't enough emoticons in the whole of MN.

OP can you hear yourself ?

Are you able to understand what bonded labour is???

What a comfort to hear that you got to have a pedicure in nice surroundings.

I am a migrant worker - I pay the price in not seeing my family, and missing Sainsburys. But at least I get paid properly, have full access to all services available to those in my home country (apart from not being able to vote) and don't have my passport removed.

yes you are right my cousin because she is from a poor country deserved to be lied to, deserved to feel fear of losing her job, of being scared of her employers, having the right to travel home taken away, not getting the pay she was promised and not being protected by her employers when she was being sexually harassed by their clients

why should she expect more she is from sri lanka, has a vagina, has brown skin, is not arab or european though she is a muslim

i do tell her to be grateful silly woman

Surely immigrants cannot be continually 'tricked' into bonded labour in Dubai?

I can see that it might happen with the first influx to a country, but once word has got round, aren't these workers choosing to accept the terms of employment that they are offered as they are better than any alternative that they have?

she was there 3/4 years ago

it is not about what they have it is about what they are promised and once there how they are treated. sadly people have pride and they have a lot of pressure to send money home. this is not a licence to treat people badly which many many are when there is absolutely no need

Ah, so some of the vitriol peddled on this thread is based on expriences which occured 1/10th of the lifetime of this place ago.

Lets just go back to 200 years AD in the UK, gosh, weren't we saints....

Is it really fair to keep on quoting examples of less than perfect behaviour that occurred relatively that long ago? Back to my stones and glass houses argument.

"England has labour laws but these are flouted all the time by human traffickers who exploit poor people who flock here for a better life. There are many poor migrants who settle in England only to be treated worse than the labourers in Dubai. Cockles, anyone? I would also argue that the UAE has a better handle on who is in their country than Britain does. You can't sneeze in Dubai without someone knowing."

Poorly paid migrant labourers and trafficked workers don't make up 50% of the UK population.

"And, it might sound shallow but I would far rather have a pedicure in Dubai with skilled Filipina workers in a luxurious setting than have to settle with the shoddy offering of Nails Inc in a Debenhams where they don't even have decent facilities, running water or skilled technicians"

Not sure whether this is laughable or chilling. I think it's chilling.

"Surely immigrants cannot be continually 'tricked' into bonded labour in Dubai?"

The UN reckons that's what's happening. Sorry if you don't like the idea, but that's what all major global human rights agencies think.

no i have been there myself (7 years ago) have seen with my own eyes how people are treated

also the number of human rights reports regarding the treatment of many many people there

the world has evolved, dubai has it was not long ago that the people lived in tents and bedouin tribes ruled the country, they have just chosen it to be selective about who they treat well

We had a Sri Lankan maid the last year we were there and I assure you that she was not badly treated, abused or underpaid. She was properly sponsored, given holiday pay, a flight home and medical card paid. I knew a lot of people who had maids and I imagine that most decent people were decent employers but you do get fuckers, yes. But not in Dubai only surely?

She was lovely and we are still in touch and she always sends cards to my kids. And she is still there, working for another family, who she now loves too. She has bought a house in Sri Lanka and sends money home to her daughter, who she has paid through college and who is just about to graduate. Her daughter lives with her granparents in Sri Lanka, which is very common.

When the Tsunami happened in 2004, DH and I gave her a substantial amount of money to give to her relatives whose house had been destroyed. I don't tell you that to receive brownie points, in fact I don't think we have ever told anyone at all, but I feel that it is necessary to point out that having a manicure in Dubai does not make one a cunt, and that the sins of others are not passed on as everyone's sins, simply by merit of trying to improve their lives and being in the country. By this logic, she would be culpable too as she certainly liked to get her nails done for her big day at Church on a Sunday with all her friends.

The construction worker case might well be human right abuses in some cases (and I don't need the use of bold text), but as I have said, it's their own bloody lot doing most the harm. Happens a lot, The Irish gaffers were the biggest bastards to the Irish construction workers here and in the US. Sad. And it's happening all over the world.

And so the circle turns. Or it does in this debate anyway.

OK. So it is India's fault that people are enslaved in Dubai.

I'm not disputing that there are Indian recruiters who are creaming off huge sums of money and tricking people BTW.

But let's face it - they wouldn't be doing it if the UAE government wasn't allowing it and there weren't nationals, expats and tourists who thought it was just ace to live a life of luxury thanks to the work of bonded labourers.

The whole thing makes me sick.

I mean honestly, what do people actually feel and think when they are staying in luxury hotels/apartments built by bonded labourers?

I just couldn't.

I would also feel pretty crap every time I turned on a tap.

This thread has been quite an eye opener for me. And not in a good way.

And I'm still interested in comments of the video I posted.

Here it is again in case you missed it.

www.vice.com/vice-news/the-slaves-of-dubai

Tell me again what is so great about Dubai? Ah yes, luxury apartments/hotels/shops/restaurants/pedicures that one couldn't afford elsewhere. Well this is where they came from.

starwarslegoboy. I'm glad you treated the Sri Lankan person who worked for you with relative decency. The whole story made me sad that she had to be separated from her daughter in order to provide for her. Surely you must see that the system is wide open to abuse however

You speak of sponsoring this woman - what precisely did that entail?

No, individual contractors are certainly at fault. It is negligent on the part of the Dubai authorities, absolutely, but let's not forget the fact, and I repeat, that it is really bloody common in Africa and pretty much anywhere out of the Anglosphere. Dubai does get the attention because it is bling and brash.

What period does this requirement for provenace of good working practice extent btw? Because history is littered with fuckers taking serious advantage of the poor.

Anyway Beachcomber, I do, in all honesty, admire your conviction and if applied as you say, your ethics. I think I'm a little more world weary. Take that as you will. We are going round in bloody circles here, and let's face it, we are not going to agree, the mud is about to sling, and I can't be arsed with that. Thanks for the debate ans all the best

Some Indians are highly educated and switched on. There are plenty of IT consultants in my work place, and plenty more working offshore in India. There are also plenty that never saw the Internet and that live in poverty. Is it THEIR fault they fall for the false advertising? You can't possibly claim that these poor people should have been more worldly wise and seen it coming?

I would never say that anyone who went to Dubai was a cunt. I would probably think to myself that they were probably a bit ignorant of what goes on there if they were truly happy to visit for leisure purposes. I have a FB friend who has just posted she is off to Abu Dhabi. I suppose I should post something horrible on her wall if I am true to my principles?

that is nice that you treated your sri lankan maid well. that is the way for many having to leave family to support them that is how desperate life is for them thankfully it is not something i would ever have to consider doing

Wow! This is still going! I can't believe the lengths people are going to to defend their decision to go to Dubai.

This thread is absolutely mental.

Sorry, last comment in answer to your question. All people must be sponsored by employers and employers need to legally pay for all registration documentation, immunisation/medical stuff, which for some countries with TB can be fairly hefty, holiday pay, flights home once every two years, medical card for access to services.

BTW, I couldn't get the link to work. Could see the front page and some stills but it was not working as a video. Bit intrigued as to how someone called Ben, I'm assuming it's him by the stills, a clearly handsome, designer stubbled, well nourished European can 'integrate' himself into a group of construction workers from the Indian subcontinent.

But nooooo, don't answer... I've had enough and this debate has lost me hours of work and I have consumed too many of my child's birthday pressie chocs instead of eating healthy shit. So I really need to go to the gym. And my nails are a frigging mess... Sorry, couldn't resist. Bows....