U A E
Despite Woes, Workers Pursue Dreams
by Peyman Pejman
DUBAI — Raju and Jasmine do not know each other. They have one thing in common, though: They both came here to follow a dream.
But while the aspiration of one may materialise, the other seems rather despondent.
Jasmine, who asked her last name not be mentioned, came here from the Philippines more than a year ago and her experience so far been pleasant. She works at a dry cleaner, has made friends, and is saving money.
"Before I came here, although I had some family members who had lived here before, my perception of the country was rather different," she told IPS. "I thought it would be a very conservative country, where you cannot wear shorts, or tight skirts, or have sex with other men. But in fact, it is a very open and tolerant country," she adds with a shy smile.
She says she came here after finishing her computer engineering studies at the state-run University of the Philippines. "Yes, I had a good degree but I would have to be a manager in my country to make the money I am making here," she adds.
Although money clearly was a factor, Jasmine came here for the same reason millions of others do. "I wanted to see places. I wanted to explore things beyond my home country," she says.
But even with her can-do attitude, some ironies in this society have not escaped her.
"There is quite a bit of discrimination here. Some of it is subtle; some not," says Jasmine. She and many others Asian workers here complain that "the locals" — meaning citizens of Gulf countries — look at them as second-class. That is even if about half of this country's 3.8 million residents are Asian workers.
"I think they do look at you as if you are lower than them, even though many of them don't openly say it. It's kind of, 'I can put you in jail if I want to' type of attitude," says Jasmine.
But life can be a lot worse and worrisome. Just ask Raju, who likewise asked that his last name be withheld.
At the tender age of 20, with no Arabic and not much English to speak of, Raju answered an advertisement in his native Nepal to come and work for a cleaning company here. "I had just finished high school. There are no jobs in Nepal, so I decided to come, save some money, then I can go back and open my own business," he told IPS.
But plans are not working quite the way he had mapped them.
After working for eight months for the Indian company that sponsored his visa, he and "many others" — all Nepalese — suddenly deserted the company and went to find other work. "We (were) not paid for three months. We had no money to eat, no money to pay rent," he explains.
His case is not unique. There have been a number of articles in newspapers about various unnamed companies not paying their foreign workers for months.
Often times, what starts as a simple labour dispute snowballs into a serious immigration issue. "The company that sponsored visa is holding my passport which has my work visa in it," says Raju.
The United Arab Emirates has strict laws for migrant workers, the bulk of whom come from Asia and work in stores, drivers and as domestic workers. Visas are issued for specific work and in most cases are not transferable to other companies.
That means when Raju left his previous employer, he technically forfeited his residency. It also means both he and his new employer can be punished for hiring a potentially undocumented worker.
"The only thing he can do is to go back to the previous employer, agree to pay some large fine to the employer and get his passport back," says a Nepalese friend of Raju who works, legally, as a security guard.
Emigration issues are touchy subjects in this country.
On one hand, the UAE owes much of its growth to foreign workers, Asian, Western or from other Arab countries. On the other hand, the country has long had a problem with unknown number of residents here on an illegal status, mostly those who had work visas at some point and have decided to stay after their permits expired.
The country twice in the last seven years has declared general amnesty if illegal residents left voluntarily. Sources say close to 100,000 foreign nationals, mostly from India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal went back, but many more remain. "It is as much a labour issue as a political issue," says one Asian diplomat here.
"They (UAE officials) would have a bit of a problem if they choose to seriously tackle the illegal immigration issue. How do you explain to these Asian countries that contributed so much to this country that all of a sudden you want to deprive so many of their citizens of the 'milk and honey' promise, even if they are here illegally?" says the diplomat. (END/Copyright IPS)
