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!

[FreudiansSlipper]

the point is there are all workers from abroad. i know that from the uk/us etc they will be professionals but it is how they are seen as people

have you seen how the migrant workers live? dubia is a very wealthy country that treats migrant workers like lesser humans

we have treated migrant workers badly and people have been prosecuted but it is not something that our government, the people of this country support

yes the sex industry and the child abuse that goes on in se asia is horrendous. thailand is a different country it is not a country where the tourist industry has been built on the sweat and tears of migrant workers but it certainly has it's problems

[Bearbehind]

But the workers from all nations chose to go there as it is a better quality of life than they have at home.

Just because some workers living conditions aren't what we are used to doesn't make it entirely bad- they likely have to endure much worse at home,

And, again, why is Dubai singled out for this vitriol?

[FreudiansSlipper]

because it is what dubai has been built on, it is what dubai still is

so a wealthy country can treat workers from very poor countries like lesser humans. well there will always be people that do that but on such a level with the government turning a blind eye but that is ok because they have it hard at home too

[FreudiansSlipper]

yes i have seen how migrant workers from mexico are treated in california it is not always good. many are illegal and are being taken advantage of. but that not what is going on in dubai it is all above board

and we are talking about dubai

this is what dubai in the last 20ish years has been about

[Bearbehind]

But that is only because we have witnessed Dubai's rapid growth in the last few years.

Every resort type tourist destination buses their workers out to off site living quarters- not just Dubai.

Dubai had provided many Asian and Indian nations with a place to work which is relatively close to home- why is that so bad?

What do you propose they do instead? Go and be sex workers in Bangkok?

[FreudiansSlipper]

that they treat people like people not like animals

[WilsonFrickett]

TBH I think the only reason Dubai is singled out, compared to other similar countries, is because it markets itself so aggressively as a destination of choice. More people are aware of it, more people go or know more people who have gone, and there are many British ex-pats who have formed their own opinions and then talked to people back home about it.

If you compare that to, say, Jordan (which is a completely different country in a completely different situation but that aside) - holidaying in Jordan is very far from 'mainstream'. Most people don't know anyone who has gone there, most people don't know anyone who has worked there, and the media isn't as switched on to stories about Jordan.

Dubai is 'singled out' because it's shit and because it's mainstream, imo.

[WilsonFrickett]

Dubai had provided many Asian and Indian nations with a place to work which is relatively close to home- why is that so bad?

because they work with no rights, no protection, no health and safety, etc etc. And that is sanctioned at the highest govt levels. In other countries, yes, illegal immigrants are at risk of being treated very badly, but in Dubai this is legal. Fine to ship people in to work, but treat them properly.

[thebody]

I have friends in Dubai and have visited there.

beyond shopping, drinking, spa bathing and partying there is most else to do.

I am not sure it's the most explorative country in the world but its dam boring.

many countries treat workers, women and children badly. many do.

[FreudiansSlipper]

i am not naive

the discussion is about dubai

i am well aware of the appalling way workers are treated all over the world the poverty that many suffer

but i can not support a country that is so wealthy yet treats migrant workers like they are animals and that is fully supported just because they have a nice hotels and shopping malls

[Bearbehind]

freudian please can you explain how living in adequate accommodation, earning a decent wage, having food provided and in many instances having access to the Internet etc is 'being treated like an animal'

These people are not being whipped morning, noon and night. They are not malnourished. They have beds and clothes. They are not slaves.

[Bearbehind]

But wilson many countries do not have those rights.

Have you ever seen the bamboo scaffolding in use in even built up cities like Hong Kong?

My point, and the OP's is why single Dubai out?

Things could be improved but that is true of many countries yet it is only Dubai that provokes such a righteous reaction.

[Portofino]

In many cases they have their passports taken away and have to work several years for "free" to cover the hiring "cost". They cannot leave. Some of the places these workers live is shocking.

[Bearbehind]

Do you know that for a fact or antecdotally portofino?

Hotel workers I have spoken to in Dubai get several weeks off each year to return home to their families.

They don't go home more often as the costs involved reduce the money they have to take home.

[abayababe]

yes you are all so right about the migrant workers in Dubai, they would all be so much better off back in Bangladesh or Sri Lanka in the factorys of the great British Marks and Spencers who pay these people 50 quid a week....yes 50!
But Im sure none of you shop in M&S, GAP, Next, Primark, or own an Apple device for that matter otherwise you would be hypocrites.....

[Larrygogan]

I haven't read the thread, but I used to live in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Obviously, the UAE is not the only country which is a dictatorship, has at best a dubious human rights record, a corrupt police force, and a heavily censored press, is an environmental disaster, openly treats the lower echelons of its migrant workforce appallingly (and I defy anyone who has been out to the labour camps in the desert and seen the filthy, overcrowded, flea-ridden conditions to say, 'oh, but they'd have been poor at home too!'), to mention only some things. The combination of tax free income to expat workers, the linkage of residency visas to and heavily subsidised lives to its own citizens - and brutal crackdowns on any dissent - keeps a lid on any trouble.

It is also not the only country where female genital mutilation is legal. There was a particularly horrible case while I lived there where a foreign woman who had divorced an Emirati man let their young daughter visit him after the split. When the child returned to her mother, she had been genitally mutilated. The mother went to the police, but all the father had to do was to produce documents to show the procedure had been carried out 'properly', in a clinic, under anaesthetic. He had done nothing wrong in the eyes of the law.

The point is that it not of course the only country to practise such abuses, but it is a country which is heavily dependent on marketing a sunny, unproblematic version of itself to attract Western tourists to replace the oil income when that dries up. People tend not to think twice about going there for some sun and shopping, so this campaign is alarmingly successful.

[WilsonFrickett]

Of course they are paid so much more in Dubai abayababe

Pay amounts are relative, rather than fixed. A 'good' wage in the UK is different from a 'good' wage in India and of course that's different again from a 'good' wage in Dubai.

[Bearbehind]

Well said abayababe

I don't doubt things could be improved in Dubai but I dont agree with the sanctimonious out pourings it provokes.

[Blu]

If other people actively choose not to go to Dubai, Maldives, etc due to a range of reasons, politcial, cultural, various preferences, what business is it of yours?

I can't think of anything worse than a holiday in a hot city, where I have to make a special effort to circumvent what I see as obscene bling and materialism to find some traditional culture. It is an irrational way of life, horrendously wasteful of resources (I hate places where I have to use aircon, and don't start me on the water supply), and it doesn't ofer a holdiay that suits my tastes. I don't want to go anywhere to enjoy myself in 40' heat.

You sound very bossy and patronising with your 'play with the hay'.

[FreudiansSlipper]

oh the works that you spoke to when in Dubai

Do you think they were honest with you would you really want to hear about how their passports are taken away, how they live many to a room while you are in luxury think that just may spoil your holiday a little amd get them the sack

Ask my cousin she will tell you a very different story and plus being a very attractive young woman she was constaly hassled (which can happen anywhere) but because she is Asian no one cared her employers certainly didn't

[abayababe]

wilsonFrickett, I not arguing wtih you on that point, people have taken the moral high ground on here, while supporting the "slave trade" that most of the hight street retailers exploit in India and the subcontinent, its not just Dubai, so unless you "grow your own jumpers" wind your neck in.

[Portofino]

Workers committing suicide.

Report from the Emirates Centre for Human Rights.

Nice shopping eh?

[CuChullain]

@ Bearbehind

Have a read here:

blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/18358/dubai-look-beyond-the-glitter-to-see-the-sorrow-of-migrant-worker/

And I quote:

"Millions of migrant workers enter Dubai and are unable to leave the country since their passports are usurped by construction companies and they are paid half the amount of wages they are promised before the contract.

Furthermore, their living conditions are extremely deplorable. Workers are deprived of even basic sanitation facilities and live in tiny, dingy apartments with at least a dozen other people."

Some other links highlighting the shite treatment of migrant workers.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7985361.stm

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/may/27/dubai-migrant-worker-deaths

Google throws up loads of articles highlighting the appalling conditions that Dubai migrant workers have to put up with.