khanfactor.com

Slavery still exists today. And it exists in the Gulf states and in Saudi Arabia.

I am Syrian, but I was born and raised in Dubai where my parents worked. When I was in grade school we often collected donations to give to the migrant laborers in a construction camp near our school. We went to visit the camp to deliver the donations, and I witnessed with my own eyes the miserable conditions of the laborers. I could not believe my eyes—it was a dump. A twelve by ten room shared by eight men. Forty-five workers shared one toilet and a shower. The toilet and the shower were filthy.

In the eighteen years I spent living in the United Arab Emirates, I learned a lot about how people treat other people. Over nine million people live in the United Arab Emirates, ninety-two percent of them are expats and migrant workers. Most of the migrant laborers come from Pakistan, India, Philippines, Bangladesh, or Sri Lanka. They work long hours and earn very little money in construction, garbage collection, and other menial jobs. The gap between the rich and the poor is huge. People from those states furnish cheap labor, and they face racism and discrimination. There is a hierarchy. Arab expatriates may hold higher paying positions, but even within Arab expatriates there is another hierarchy. Expatriates from Saudi Arabia are usually treated better than expatriates from Egypt for example. They are also discriminated against. Nationality plays a major role in what position a person can hold in the United Arab Emirates. Even at McDonalds or KFC the managers were always Arabs while the other employees were Filipinos, Indians, and the other people at the bottom of the social hierarchy. You will never find a Filipino being a manager over an Arab worker. The division of labor is appalling – the same inequities that exist in the economic system of the United States have been reproduced in these countries as well. Continue reading →