We Demand to End the Exploitation of Foreign Workers and Using Children As Camel Jockeys

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has failed to protect male and female migrant domestic and construction workers from beatings, hunger, overwork, underpayment and forced labour. Children are still used as Camel Jockeys endangering their lives. Some children in the past have been killed through this inhumane sport activity. Children are beaten and starved to keep them fit for the job. We demand to end the traditional Kafala visa sponsorship system in the Gulf States. This system perpetuates much of the exploitation. The Kafala system is a new form of slavery prevalent in the Gulf States. This system decrees that a domestic and construction sites worker cannot move to a new job before their contract ends without the employer’s consent, trapped many men and women in abusive conditions. The UAE’s sponsorship system chains domestic workers to their employers and then leaves them isolated and at risk of abuse behind the closed doors of private homes. Migrant workers are living in inhumane and disgusting conditions. With no labour law protection for domestic and construction/non construction workers, employers can, and many do, overwork, underpay and abuse these workers. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has failed to protect male and female migrant domestic and construction workers from beatings, hunger, overwork, underpayment and forced labour. According to the latest statistics, foreigners account for more than 88.5 percent of UAE residents, many of them poor migrant workers. Immigration sponsorship laws grant employers extraordinary power over the lives of these workers. They have no right to organize or bargain collectively and face penalties for going on strike. Employment protections laid out in the Labor Law of 1980 do not extend to domestic migrant workers employed in private households. Across the country, abuses include unsafe work environments, the withholding of travel documents, and low and nonpayment of wages, despite a mandatory electronic payment system introduced in 2009.