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!

Yes, that's the impression I get from my friends from these countries. Though when I think of some circumstances I encountered there was camaraderie and fun and laughter from the maids say sharing the same condo experience. On the other hand, where I lived the maids seemed more controlled. Phones were sometimes forbidden, days off few and far between. Our maid was bored because although she was free to come and go, the maids neighbouring us weren't. It was very much a locally controlled area though.

But as you said earlier in the thread, Bing - the fact that Dubai is so rich means that they could afford to raise the bar higher for treatment for domestic workers higher than other countries. But no-one on this thread is arguing for that, just taking pains to point out that some people are nice to the maids they 'sponsor' - as they should be.

I think it's pretty arrogant to assume that "people in the UK probably don't realise" that having servants isn't a Western invention.

But I can't see anyone defending the kafala system on this thread (just pointing out that not everyone abuses their servants).

Since dipping into this thread I've read Ehrenreich and Hochschild's Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy I would really recommend it if, like me, you've been shocked at some of the glib self-justification for unethical labour practises on this thread

Just because you are an expat and employ a maid does't necessarily make you a shallow cunt.

Oh I think you'll find it does, when being tried by Mumsnet Kangaroo Court.

People have no objection whatsoever to your employing whatever cheap cleaner/gardener/handyman/babysitter/car washer you can get your hands on (Eastern European living 12 to a terraced house in Luton, benefits dependent single mums making a bit of cash in hand on the side, etc) in the UK, but the minute you take on the title of Ex Pat (which we all know makes us the leathery faced spawn of Satan in a kaftan, clutching a martini, or perhaps that's just me ) and we have the audacity to let these people live in our house rent free, we buy all their food and toiletries, pay when they need the doctor, and give them a flight home every year or two, then we clearly deserved to be publicly flogged and told we are a spoilt, lazy, vain, shallow, immoral cunts.

Whereas if we refused to employ them on principle, or couldn't afford to employ them full time because we set the benchmark according to UK NMW, their families would be on the street, but who cares eh? We'd be able to hold our heads high in Guardianista Land.

Forgive me if I continue to be shallow and lazy, but at the moment I am the sole source of income for my maid's 13 younger siblings in Manila. That's not my fault, or her fault, so who wants me to stop, so that you can feel better about the fact that I've been brought down a peg or two and made to mop my own floors?

I'm an expat and I employ a maid - for a few hours of cleaning and ironing per week, now that the kids are in school.

Back when babies were small and I had a full-time maid, she had the status of a revered aunt and was referred to as "vous".

It is not being an expat and employing someone in your house that makes you an immoral cunt. It is how you treat that person.

reminds me of when a friend did VSO in Malawi and was mortified to find she had a maid, cook and gardener. She told her employer she didn't need any servants and was quietly informed that as she was getting paid it was expected she would employ a few people, to share the money around the town...

Still think Dubai looks shit, though.

I'd live to go to Iceland, Canada and am desperate to go to India. Dubai looks very dull.

Well exactly Cote. A member of DH's family is an expat and he and his wife employ someone. This woman lives locally with her family and is independent of them with regards to how she lives her life. As many people have pointed out, she needs this job, she needs the money and is using it to put her son through school. They also call her 'vous' and although they have known each other for years call her 'Madame her surname'.

I don't have an issue with people having domestic staff - I can well imagine that if I were an expat I might even feel I had a duty to provide employment for local people. As you say it is all about how the person is treated and the working conditions.

I think the system in the UAE is awful - this whole sponsorship thing makes an employee totally dependent and creates a status for domestic staff which is that of owned servant (for the time of their contract). It means that domestic workers are dependant on their employers deciding to be nice to them and treat them with respect and kindness. Everyone on here has stated that they have done that, and I'm glad to hear it. It is quite obviously not the case though for many other employers. I have read quite a few threads on that expat forum and the attitudes shown by a lot of posters is vile. There is lots of talk of 'deport her' 'put her on the first plane home' and very little kindness on those threads. There seems to be almost no sympathy for the fact that these women are miles away from their homes and families, indeed there is very much an attitude of the 'maid' should be grateful that she has a job and a room and therefore should be cheerful and perfect at all times despite being isolated and having virtually no freedom. There is a lot of entitlement being shown on those threads. And a lot of 'othering'.

To employ a local person in their own country, who has their family around them, and who has independent status is an entirely different thing to what goes on in Dubai.

I just don't understand how people can 'love Dubai' when they know the reality of the system. I read threads on that forum where women were asking if they should 'let' their maid stay with friends overnight on her time off - the answer seemed to be 'no' because if she gets into any trouble her owner employer will be held responsible. I get that this is due to the workings of the employment system in Dubai but honestly how could you live like that? Policing and controlling the entire life of someone who supposedly just works for you and condoning the system by going along with it and actively participating in it.

But of course people do because they want the lifestyle that living Dubai allows them to have. And I'm sorry but all this 'I support entire families by employing a servant' stuff is not terribly honest. People don't go to Dubai in order to help the poor by employing domestic staff. People go to Dubai for themselves. Yes perhaps your money is important to an entire family (if you pay well) but you don't do it out of charity - you are paying someone for their time, presence in the country and their work. YOU are not supporting their family, THEY are.

HeadsDownThumbsUp - thank you for the book recommendation and also for the link to the migrant rights website.

Oh, keep off maid threads on the Dubai Expat Woman forum unless you want to see a very dark side to expat life, which would be hilarious if it wasn't so unconsciously cruel, and a reflection of a particularly unpleasant domestic sponsorship system.

There was a continual drama between those expat employers who were completely unused to live-in domestic help and those who considered themselves 'old hands' and who thought the newbies were being exploited by 'savvy Filipinas'. (This is a prevalent stereotype, not necessarily Filipina - the clever maid who plays mind games, invents family tragedies at home to milk money from her employers, gossips about her family via the 'maid mafia', takes her boyfriends into the employers' bed when left home alone and/or seduces the husband, cleans the house in inappropriately skimpy attire, 'steals clever' by hiding jewellery for weeks or months to see if anyone notices it has gone...)

You know it is possible to disagree with how the British behave internationally and, um, yunno, disagree with slavery in Dubai at the same time.

Indeed sometimes these things are part and parcel of the same thing. For example British people participating in a system that is recognised by human rights organisations to be slavery. (Even if they are jolly nice to the 'maid' and charitably supporting entire families.)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kafala_system

Thank you also to the poster who posted this link.

The overall picture is of one of the richest nations exploiting one of the poorest to get ready for the world's most popular sporting tournament.

And it is hardly a 'splinter' what is going on in Dubai and indeed many other areas of the middle east. We are talking about the exploitation, enslavement, abuse and trashing of the human rights of millions of people.

"Sometimes you have to wonder exactly who is doing it all wrong."

No you don't.

So still the major plus point of Dubai is 'other places are worse'/as bad'.

Not sure the Dubai tourist board will be employing anybody
On this thread soon. It's light is still very much hidden under a bushel.

Well, MangoTiramisu, I'm a Scot - a population which is very familiar with the raping and pillaging of the English. So if you don't mind I will continue to condemn slavery in the middle east and just hope that your attitude is not representative.

Now has anybody mentioned that apart from this issue Dubai is actually very dull?
Its a bit like Benidorm for footballers wives no?

FellatioNelson are you comparing your senior banker (British?) expat DH's situation to that of Ethiopian/Fillipino/Fill in name of poor country here, 'maids' in Dubai???

I'm not surprised the crime levels are low. They would be a lot lower in the UK too if people ran the risk of deportation and losing the only means they have of paying off their debt bond.

Makes it nice for the expats though eh, being able to leave their garage doors open and not have their stuff nicked by poor exploited people.

oh I think Scots have done a fair share of raping and pillaging themselves.

The stereotype reminds me of , Teapigging!

How about the Dutch & French?

Please look at what a leftist french government is doing at the moment on your doorstep.
here
and they are european. Its always more complicated than we might think

Beachcomber - " I just don't understand how people can 'love Dubai' when they know the reality of the system. I read threads on that forum where women were asking if they should 'let' their maid stay with friends overnight on her time off - the answer seemed to be 'no' because if she gets into any trouble her owner employer will be held responsible. I get that this is due to the workings of the employment system in Dubai but honestly how could you live like that? Policing and controlling the entire life of someone who supposedly just works for you and condoning the system by going along with it and actively participating in it. "

Get over yourself. "How could you live like that?"

And no one is employing these women out of the goodness of their heart or condoning their mistreatment, what are you doing to help them? Those women are there looking for work. Most of them are hoping to get a western expat to work for hoping that this will make their lives easier and have better conditions. An expat using moral indignation to not employ them and cleaning their own loos will not help them at all and is not what these women want.

You really are tedious and continually insulting without actually doing anything to help.

I really don't understand how you could live like that though. I don't understand how people can actively participate in and benefit from a system which is slavery under everything but name.

The notion that it is 'helping' people to employ them under a system of slavery is just too much cognitive dissonance for me.

You have no idea what I do in my private life to help people. I can assure you that it doesn't involve employing people under extremely dubious laws in rich countries which use slave labour and present that as helping the poor.

The way I help 'migrant workers' is to volunteer and contribute to a charity which supports a population of trafficked and pimped women. I don't get a clean house out of it but it works for me. So can you and others now quit with the 'what to you do to help Beach' line of silencing??

And all this posturing about Western employers being such good guys just sounds like self-justification. And it doesn't ring terribly true from some of the stuff I have read.

Yes, 'maids' prefer to work for Western families because they are often treated utterly appalling by Emirati families. If the motivation was to help these women then just give them the money and let them stay with their families whilst campaigning against the UAE employment laws. Or join a micro lending organisation and help women set up business in their own countries. Or go to the countries they are from and volunteer or set up a local business with a local partner employing people locally.

Participating in a system of slavery and then painting oneself as a good guy because you treat the help better than you have to or others do, and then wanting a cookie for it, is utterly bizarre. You are not changing the system, you are perpetuating it, benefiting from it and actively supporting it.