The citizens in the Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council rely on 35 million migrant workers who fulfill their every need. The Arab citizens of these countries have cradle-to-grave support from the government, and need not work to survive. In fact, they are mostly layabouts, spoiled silly by the oil money from their governments, while millions of expat workers who take care of their every need. Migrant workers perform over 95% of manual labor and construction jobs in Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar. These workers mainly come from South Asia (India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Philippines) and other Arab nations (Egypt, Sudan, Syria). At the upper end, Americans and Europeans furnish the engineers, petroleum specialists, doctors, nurses. Migrant workers from Asian and African nations, including the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Ethiopia, and Kenya, exclusively perform domestic work. Millions of foreign women work as housemaids, nannies, and caregivers, while men often work as private drivers, gardeners, or cooks. The Arab Muslim employers of some of those female domestic workers have also exploited them sexually.
Expat workers in the GCC countries, especially those from Asia and Africa, are treated terribly. Their passports are often taken away as soon as they arrive, and they are then hopelessly dependent on their employers, who withhold the passports in order that workers cannot leave without the employer’s permission. Employers sometimes withhold, or greatly decrease, wages, simply because the employees have no legal recourse. They must simply accept whatever the employer decides. If they protest about dangerous working conditions, or 14-hour workdays in 120-degree weather, or being paid less than promised, they may be summarily deported, without receiving their latest wages due.
There is a hierarchy of such foreign workers. At the bottom are those who build the roads, the sports stadia, the apartment houses, the luxury hotels. They are mostly from the subcontinent — Pakistan, India, Bangladesh. Among the foreign workers, they are the ones who receive the worst treatment.
One step up from the manual laborers are those who do everything an Arab family requires, from being cooks and waiters, nurses, nannies, chauffeurs, taxi drivers, launderers, and others in similar kinds of domestic jobs, requiring some slight skill. Filipinos, Sri Lankans, Thai, and others from eastern Asia mostly fill these jobs. And far above both manual laborers and domestic help are the expats who are professionals — doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, financial analysts and advisers, who come from Europe and North America.
In addition to the risks of ill-treatment by their Arab employers, these migrant workers now also face risks from living in a war zone, for they too have been struck and killed by Iranian drones and missiles.
The Qatari government was in a hurry to complete several massive stadiums and hotels in time for the scheduled opening of the World Cup and ran roughshod over all health-and-safety concerns; as a result, 6500 migrant workers preparing the World Cup venues in Qatar died.
The Gulf countries have promised to improve conditions for migrant workers, but none of these improvements in workers’ safety and occupational health conditions are likely to occur. The Gulf Arab states have had decades to improve both, and they have done neither. They are indifferent to the lives and wellbeing of their migrant workers. The migrant workers are treated terribly; their Arab employers know how desperate they are for work, and are thus able to increase demands on them without offering additional compensation. The migrant workers cannot stop work even with the constant threat of Iranian bombardments; if they die, their employers can easily replace them with desperate job-seekers from east Asia. As a consequence, nearly 6,500 workers died in Qatar alone, building the FIFA stadiums. And in the six years between 2013 and 2018, 25,000 migrant workers from just one country — India — have died while working in the Gulf. But there are millions of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman. Saudi Arabia alone has 12 million migrant workers; the U.A.E. has 8 million. What must the total number of migrant workers’ deaths be from all the countries that have been sending workers to the Gulf during the past few decades? 100,000? 300,000?
It’s a scandal that this situation has been allowed to continue. None of the countries sending those migrant works to the Gulf, where they can then remit payments earned abroad to their families at home, wants to make a public fuss; those countries fear that if they do so, the Gulf states will simply stop accepting migrant workers from any country that complains. They are wiling to accept substandard health and safety conditions for their citizens, in order not to endanger their jobs as migrant workers in the Gulf. The mistreatment of tens of millions of migrant workers in the Gulf by their Arab employers, and the failure of their own countries to join together to make a collective complaint about that mistreatment, is scandalous. Will no one step forth at a public meeting of a human-rights NGO, or at a meeting of the UN General Assembly, and finally insist that the widespread mistreatment of migrant workers by Gulf Arabs be addressed?
WPM says
It is written into Islamic law slavery of the unbeliever is a good rightist thing why is everyone so shocked they put this into practice whenever they are totally in charge?. If a serial killer murder alot of people over a period of 20 years no one questions his motive ,serial killers kill ,Moslems abuse and enslave nonbelievers it has been going on in Islam for over a thousand years? The history and record of behavior is there under many different cultures and races it is a predictable behavior only wooden headed progressives in the west refuse to recognize or learn from it .A progressive democrat would be all in and not facing reality would touch a hot stove with his or her hand get burnt ,not recognize the fact this what happen put their face against the stove and be shocked when half their face is burned off! That is the immigration policy for Moslems in western Europe under the present governments and democrats in America .
somehistory says
The racist idiot mayor of Chicago says that restaurants are built on slavery, but I’m guessing that he would never acknowledge that the muzzies are responsible for most of the slavery that actually existed.
And restaurants are not built on slavery, though islime pretty much is.
Siddhi Nasrani says
A good book to read about Arab slave traders.
White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa’s One Million European Slaves Paperback – 9 May 2005
by Giles Milton (Author)
This is the forgotten story of the million white Europeans, snatched from their homes and taken in chains to the great slave markets of North Africa to be sold to the highest bidder. Ignored by their own governments, and forced to endure the harshest of conditions, very few lived to tell the tale.
Using the firsthand testimony of a Cornish cabin boy named Thomas Pellow, Giles Milton vividly reconstructs a disturbing, little known chapter of history. Pellow was bought by the tyrannical sultan of Morocco who was constructing an imperial pleasure palace of enormous scale and grandeur, built entirely by Christian slave labour. As his personal slave, he would witness first-hand the barbaric splendour of the imperial court, as well as experience the daily terror of a cruel regime.
Gripping, immaculately researched, and brilliantly realised, WHITE GOLD reveals an explosive chapter of popular history, told with all the pace and verve of one of our finest historians.
WPM says
Let import these slave masters to the west so they can enslave the native populations of England ,France and Germany and ensure the progressive know everything elites keep getting elected or be apported to the unelected EU.
James Lincoln says
According to the feature article:
“Migrant workers perform over 95% of manual labor and construction jobs in Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar.”
I have been to Bahrain, and I can personally verify that that is the case.
40 rounds says
Geez, that’s how Democrats envision the future of the US
WPM says
Well the democratic party was the inventors of the KKK after the civil war right. Also the pro-segregation party in the American South until the 1960s .So the democratic party was pro-slavery even 100 years after the civil war was over in America. They wanted black Americans to be second class citizens in the American south by segregation and terror spread by the KKK. The KKK also hated Jews ,and Catholic so Sharia law has that in common with them .
Westman says
It once was “Good To Be The King” in the West. Now it’s better to own the oil whether King or Mullah.
Beautiful Islamic cities have been built with the money from a declining West that won’t develop better and sufficient nuclear power plants. Wind and solar can’t fill the gap between the coming AI processing farms and the cessation of coal, petroleum, and natural gas energy.
Now AI corporations are considering building their own power stations. Wouldn’t it be a tragedy if our future gleaming cities are built by the AI tech giants and the US citizens are the equivalent of Saudi Arabia’s foreign workers? Do we really think the AI tech giants will share the profits with anyone but executives and investors?
࿗Infidel࿘ says
It’s a shame that none of the governments of these various countries seem to care about their own citizens languishing in these Gulf 💩🕳
All those Gulf countries should be told to take in the Palestinians, who can be put to the same work
WPM says
They rather enslave non-believers and kill or put their own lower class Moslems in outer ghettoes or use them as cannon fodder against the unbeliever in terror attacks or jihad thru immigration to the west. Remember you are either a slave or master in Islam they have no interest in improving the standard of living for anyone outside their own family clan. Thief from your own people you rule ,enslavement of outsiders ,rape ,murder are all encourages actions and believed to be virtues in Islam. It is a pirate cultural to its core ,a true Moslem ruler is still a savage in the 21 century ,he just wears a modern suit now .
Greyhound Fancier says
Our son spent time in Bahrain and told us about the mistreatment of the imported workers. This was about 25 years ago, and evidently nothing has changed.
One detail we heard back then: the official temperature is never reported as above 120 degrees. If the temperature is hotter than 120, then the workers are supposed to get more humane treatment. Can’t have that!
WPM says
They even lie about the temperature outdoors to keep those slave working at 100 percent .What will they not lie about ,the most untrustworthy of all people .
Brenrod says
Considering all the wars and terror they have financed, enabled and facilitated they should be held responsible to pay the costs, damages and reparations. They no longer have a right to sovereignty or their resources. Most of them could be easily attacked and taken over. The locals could be sent back to the desert to live in tents and compatible foreign workers could be kept in place to run oil industry whose profits would be used for repayment. If I were Israel I would consider that option rather than continue to live under attack began and paid for by by their undeserved oil. Trump should stop protecting them from paying for the slaughter they created and give Israel a green light to seize their oil. They should not be allowed to enjoy peace or wealth for their evil crimes. The USA should also consider seizure options to pay back for the wars they created. No more rebuilding terrorist nations, seize their assets instead. Make them pay. Same for Gaza.
JA says
There needs to be more media attention to the fact that anyone who goes to a Muslim country becomes a slave. Let the people know forget the governments.!!
JA says
I should also point out that there are domestic slaves in America as well according to Operation Underground Railroad. Someone needs to investigate this!
Ralph says
Sometimes I wish there was no such thing as oil for propulsion. The world would be so much better a place were vehicles fueled by other sources of power (not from the Middle East, in any event).
Anglodesi says
Now we know which states in ME are the real Apartheid states! It’s definitely not Israel.