To wonder what happens to the maids and nannies etc when people flee Dubai/the Middle East

[morningmists]

I saw news stories of lots of pets being left behind, but I can't see any mention of the maids and nannies etc ? I am guessing it wouldn't always be simple to get them to England due to visas etc -so do they get booked on flights back to their homes?

My mum had a nanny growing up and she loved her as much as she loved her mum so I imagine this is a hard separation for some

https://britishgoverness.com/Dubainannies.html

Because there’s no special ‘British price’ for live-in maids — a quick look around various expat forums will show you what the current going rate is in Dubai. There’s very little variation — occasionally you’ll get people cutting costs by ‘sharing’ a maid with a neighbour. But everyone hiring domestic labour uses the same few recruitment agencies, regardless of nationality.

Yes, perhaps I am naive. I just can't imagine having a domestic employee from a developing country and not treating them well. And I think most people I know would do the same. Not that I can really imagine employing a live-in maid or nanny anyway.

When we lived in the middle east we had houseboys (male maids you could say), they were very much part of the family and very well taken care of, they used to babysit us and I remember them fondly, we have some lovely photos with them. They'd bring us gifts back when they went back to their home country (I still have one in my study) and we'd do the same.

Yes. You are naive. But you don’t have to stay naive - just Google and you’ll find many, many articles about it.

Theres nothing particularly unique about being British - British people will pay the same price as any other nationality.

But for the British people who choose to live in Dubai, having cheap domestic labour readily available is the whole point, along with tax-free salaries and a ‘safe luxury’ lifestyle. As I said earlier, not having a maid would be like not having a fridge.

Cringing for you. It is very clear. Maybe more sophisticated grammar than you can write, but it’s correct.

I have no idea who their employers were, but I do think its common place not to see staff even nannies as family members in places where labour is cheap and there is such a huge difference in income, culture etc m. Nannies working in britain are paid realy well, they are not comparible as nannies in countries like uae often are from phillipines and other similar countries where the exchange rate means they will be paid a pittence compared to a british nanny. They often leave their own children at home in their countries to come and work and send money back for education of their children. Its not just nannies, we had workers doing telesales in kuwait that were paid a tiny fraction of my wages but had left their kids back in the phillipines to come and work as it was the best and often the only way to amsupport their entire family back home if you think of their mindset and then the mindset of someone employing them who is earning maybe 50 times what they are earning or much more, it is easy to see why bonds arent really formed between nannies and their employers in countries with such huge wage disparity.
I tried to hire a nanny myself but during the interview process I was too uncomfortable with the whole set up. Someone living in my basement basically, while I paid them a pittence to raise my kids. I couldnt go through with it

When I lived in thailand the expat community would often post on the social groups about people over paying their staff. People would get really pissed off if they got wind of someone over paying as then prices rise across the board when the staff talk to each other. I remember lots of angry posts about this. If someone advertised for a nanny or driver in the recruitment groups and were paying more than standard, people would repost this on the expat groups demanding they lower their rate and everyone would pile on agreeing. And yes these were english people, paying like 150 quid a month for a live in full time nanny.

Great post.

Had no idea it was as bad in Thailand too? Women there ofc have long been badly treated in the sex industry, and I suppose the poverty that fuels that leads to exploitation in other areas.

Ofc the Thai king has his own issues, though he's not quite a Sheikh Makhtoum.

@Sprawling Thank you for your informative balanced opinions and links.
My scant knowledge of Dubai has been through the lenses of my Fillapina friends who have worked there. Your posts very much chime with things they have said about their experiences.
(which in turn often chime with my own past experiences (not in Dubai or ME) of being a live in worker funding my family, with a huge gulf of social levels, class, expectations, pay and conditions between me and those employing and at times effectively owning me, and on the receiving end of 'fear of covert power.')

To the west people are cheap so do people there using them really care what happens afterwards they are disposable like their pets and their designer homes

Are people more highly valued in the east. That's news. Russia, Korea ?

i lived there when I was younger as part of my global rotational scheme for work.

i was young and unmarried at the time so didn’t have a nanny/housemaid/driver but I can confirm those who do, Brits (mostly) and other foreigners who settle there with their families don’t give a toss…they would just leave staff behind and their pets.
the small population from that country (emirates) are pretty much like one poster described about how they treat their staff.

It sort of amuses me that people seem to forget Dubai is in the Middle East.

They do, but it’s partly, I think, because in the heads of the kind of people who go there on holiday or who might consider living there, it’s a kind of apolitical, non-geographical no-space of ‘safe luxury’, rather than a country in a sensitive bit of the Persian Gulf, almost within sight of Iran across a narrow key shipping strait crucial to global oil supply.

There’s also the point that this type of person is more likely to get their ideas from Dubai influencers (who are essentially UAE propagandists key to Brand Dubai) than from credible news outlets.

I mean, I think the same people would be taken aback to think that the Canary Islands are on the African tectonic plate, and the inhabitants have significant Berber and SubSaharan African genetics.

Travel broadens the mind apparently, or allegedly. Tenerife was an interesting place, very varied botanically.
The roadside shrines on sharp corners over steep cliffs were thought provoking. They were never a UK thing in my youth but we seem to have adopted the habit here now.

Mr friends daughter and others I know live in Dubai. She said she doesn’t know what all the fuss is about and everyone she knows is just getting on with their daily lives. I’m sure someone will disagree with me though.

Respectfully, the type of person who chooses to live in Dubai is very good at selective vision, whether that’s big issues like conflict in the region or that FGM is legal in private clinics, or the small unpleasantnesses like widespread hair loss from semi-desalinated water and poor air quality.

I once met someone who lived in South Africa during apartheid. He thought everything was fine and everyone was happy with their lot.

Ships ? I see no ships.

The repatriation flights are not free.

I"m glad to hear it.

FGM is legal in private clinics? That's vile. Shows the shallowness of the UAE's 'reformist' image.