Labourers living in homes 'not fit for cats and dogs'

ACTION CALL: A TV debate in Doha heard that improvements must be made to living conditions for labourers in Gulf states. (Getty Images - for illustrative purposes only)

Gulf states are seeking to buy people’s silence through state hand-outs while unskilled foreign workers are living in conditions “unacceptable to cats and dogs”, according to a leading Bahraini newspaper editor.

Dr Mansoor Al-Jamri, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Bahrain’s daily Alwasat newspaper, drew loud applause at Qatar’s BBC televised Doha Debates with his comments.

He said: “The governments have a philosophy based on oil wealth, but instead of letting it trickle down to the people they use it to silence the elite or to by-pass their citizens.”

He added that in Bahrain the average salary in the private sector had dropped by 15 per cent in recent years and more than half the population had been waiting to be housed since 1992.

Speaking of the wretched housing which so many foreign workers from the Indian sub-continent endure in Gulf states, Al-Jamri said they had to live in conditions “that cats and dogs would not accept.”

He warned that if these workers, who make up the vast proportion of unskilled labour, continued to be treated like third class citizens, their inability to share in the decision-making process or have a right of domicile would ultimately lead to the intervention of international bodies in the affairs of Gulf states.

Al-Jamri was speaking at the latest Doha Debate, a unique public debating forum in the Middle East, whose 350-strong audience voted 75 per cent to 25 per cent in favour of a motion that “Gulf Arabs Value Profit over People.”

He told the mainly Arab audience attending the debate, to be broadcast on BBC World News on November 22-23, that token trade unions existed in Bahrain and Kuwait but that they were deprived of powers of collective bargaining and the protection of international labour organisations.

“I am always hearing in the media and from officials how this is not the right time for the participation of the people. They say: we will give you free education and free housing, but just shut up and don’t criticise.”

His colleague on the panel, Dr Najeeb Al-Nauimi, a former Qatari Justice Minister and later lead counsel defending Saddam Hussein in Iraq, condemned governments which summarily deport not just unskilled, foreign labour but teachers and sometimes doctors.

Al-Nauimi decried the lack of compassion towards a labour force which builds extravagant construction projects on meagre salaries with minimal social benefits.

“Oil prices and cheap labour are the basis of our economies,” which depend in turn “on the silence of our citizens,” he said.

Al-Nauimi warned that the Indian sub-continent was forging ahead by opening up its societies to a working, middle and upper class with rights. “We are (just) citizens of the Gulf and represent a marginal class, marginalised by the political process.”

Speaking against the motion, Sheikh Mohamed Ahmed Jassim Althani, former Qatari Economic and Commerce Minister, argued that Doha had pioneered ambitious social services emulated by its neighbours.

He said life expectancy had increased over the last 25 years from an average 55 years to 75 years, although he accepted that the workforce was abused.

“But remember they also get abused at home. I do not defend these employers, but the state is taking all kinds of measures to enforce the regulations.”

Dr Tarik Yousef, founding Dean of the Dubai School of Government and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that Gulf states provided “free housing, free healthcare and free education along with guaranteed employment in the public sector.

“The rapid economic modernisation of the Gulf states is ahead of the rest of the Arab world and is being emulated by them.”

He said the appropriate labour laws existed but the problem lay in enforcing them.

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READERS' COMMENTS

Labor Homes
Posted by TALAL, BOSTON, BAHRAIN on Tuesday 25 November 2008 at 18:44 UAE time


This is what we the gulf can offer, if they (workers) don't like it tough luck.. let them get a job somewhere else

dubai the city that cares !! lol
Posted by pureorama on Sunday 23 November 2008 at 13:48 UAE time

Dubai forgot the people who made it what it is with their sweat and toil... now Dubai will pay..

Housing
Posted by GB, Dubai, UAE on Thursday 20 November 2008 at 10:15 UAE time


It is not only the expatriate population who live in poor conditions. There are many national citizens living in this state, but no-one shows their plight. However, one only has to see the number of people who go to Red Crescents and similar charity organisations as well as the Social Services sections of the Government for assistance, to know the problem exists. People assume that all Arabs are wealthy because we are always reading about them, but the truth is that very few are wealthy. The others are ordinary citizens, a nameless majority, who suffer in silence.

Shame on the Gulf Leaders!
Posted by John Doe on Wednesday 19 November 2008 at 15:22 UAE time


At a time when the Arab 'financial experts' should be recoiling from the mistakes and the millions plundered from the expat population, this news comes at a bad time, how would the Sheikhs feel if their ppl lived in these same conditions!!

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