Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, try and enter Dubai illegally and they will throw your ass in jail for a long time.

Perhaps Hillary should learn why.

No. They just export you. Just like here. And everywhere else.

Just like here? Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Best joke of the day!!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, try and enter Dubai illegally and they will throw your ass in jail for a long time.

Perhaps Hillary should learn why.

No. They just export you. Just like here. And everywhere else.

Just like here? Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, try and enter Dubai illegally and they will throw your ass in jail for a long time.

Perhaps Hillary should learn why.

No. They just export you. Just like here. And everywhere else.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Big airport, trade hub, business hub, tons of real estate speculation, and a tourist destination for a lot of Europeans. It is safe for westerners, not too foreign seeming. But underneath that, there are the problems pps mentioned.

"It is safe for westerners" unless you report being raped. It is not safe for women.

I am white christian woman who lived there several years. I felt much safer in Dubai than in DC.

Same but for a much shorter period.

Anonymous wrote:Also, try and enter Dubai illegally and they will throw your ass in jail for a long time.

Perhaps Hillary should learn why.

Because security in Dubai is outstanding. It is much more invasive then here. Similarly to the UK everything is on camera. Everything. And, everything is registered. No burner phones. Nothing like that. It's just a different beast.

And, they pretty much give the CIA and other intelligence agencies freedom.

What is the terrorism situation there? Why aren't the radicals attacking Dubai for being too western?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These are from the Dubai post in the Travel forum. I'm guess the Dubai cheerleader on this thread is the same as over on that one.: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/546607.page#8660801


"These housemaids tell their story of being beaten and harassed by their male and female employers, wages withheld. If they leave they end up in jail where they are abused or raped and have no rights and cannot testify against employers for rape or wage withholding. They have zero legal recourse.

https://youtu.be/NgPnsid4r5s

I doubt any tourists nor ex-pats living privileged lives over there would see the atrocities hidden inside the luxurious homes and buildings."

"Enjoy Dubai, where you can be arrested for simply being a woman waiting in line for a taxi: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-woman-jaile...ab-emirates/ar-BBrCCM3?ocid=sf"

Here's a decent blog post from someone that lived there for 4 years
http://bkpk.me/why-i-left-dubai-and-wont-come-back-part-12/

If you're an American, British, from another Emirate, Saudi or Kuwait. You are fine in Dubai. If you are a well off South Asian, you can do alright for yourself too but there will be more discrimination for sure and you wouldn't want you're daughters to live there beyond high school.

If you're a poor laborer or housemaid from Nigeria, Pakistan, India, Philippines, Sri Lanka, you're screwed.

To the OP, yes Dubai/UAE is definitely better than most other Muslim countries, but that's a statement that doesn't really carry much weight given the precarious notion of the comparison.

OP here.

I'm a lawyer who represented domestic workers who were enslaved by their employers in the DC metro area.

To pp: you do realize that human trafficking of domestic workers/slaves happens in DC, MoCo, and the rest of the US, right? So is the US on par with those Muslim nations?

Let's not get down in the weeds. I'm more focused on why some Muslim nations are for all intents and purposes dysfunctional and seemingly incapable of functioning properly while others seem to be more stable. I'm clearly not delusional enough to believe that any Muslim nation has a good human rights record or recognizes the rule of law. I'm merely wondering how Dubai can seemingly tolerate a large number of westerners and Christians while other countries in their region clearly have not achieved that.

I know history (or lack thereof) is the primary factor.

I suspect governance is another.

But at some point it gets down to the community level, right?

Is it the influx of outsiders from the west, Asia and Africa, etc? Is it education? Is "tolerance" driven by money?

It was a recognition early on that Dubai and the UAE generally were not going to be the oil rich area that Saudi and Kuwait looked forward to as a result of their vast oil fields. Sheik Zayed saw this early on and pointed the country on a westernized path and in doing so realized that their wealth (and stability) would come only from being able to supply a stable and secure area for services needed by the west (and the east). So they started with re-exporting. Dubai is still the world's largest re-exporter. Shipping services and a financial center that allowed for western business norms. Which is also why the UAE has a Friday/Saturday weekend while Saudi and Kuwait have Thursday/Friday weekends. Which is also why Dubai as a financial center does business on a western basis. Interest, for example, is not forbidden.

To get even more people and money flowing through, they needed to become a destination. Thus the relatively lax laws surrounding alcohol. The luxury resorts. Etc. It is a cheap and easy flight for Europe to go to Dubai in January - when it is beautiful!

They made mistakes. They opened the door to a lot of dirty Russian money. They realized this and have consequently cracked down on it, which is why Dubai is no longer over-whelmed with Russian tourists.

Because it is a huge re-exporter, it also attracts a lot of tourism from Africa. Flying to Dubai and purchasing huge qualities of consumer goods is far cheaper than purchasing it throughout Africa.

In essence, what made the UAE move where it is is the recognition that they did not have a resource that would allow them to accumulate wealth on a sustained, long-term basis. And for them to survive on a long-term basis, they needed to attract money. Cash flow. On an ongoing basis.

Anonymous wrote:These are from the Dubai post in the Travel forum. I'm guess the Dubai cheerleader on this thread is the same as over on that one.: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/546607.page#8660801


"These housemaids tell their story of being beaten and harassed by their male and female employers, wages withheld. If they leave they end up in jail where they are abused or raped and have no rights and cannot testify against employers for rape or wage withholding. They have zero legal recourse.

https://youtu.be/NgPnsid4r5s

I doubt any tourists nor ex-pats living privileged lives over there would see the atrocities hidden inside the luxurious homes and buildings."

"Enjoy Dubai, where you can be arrested for simply being a woman waiting in line for a taxi: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-woman-jaile...ab-emirates/ar-BBrCCM3?ocid=sf"

Here's a decent blog post from someone that lived there for 4 years
http://bkpk.me/why-i-left-dubai-and-wont-come-back-part-12/

If you're an American, British, from another Emirate, Saudi or Kuwait. You are fine in Dubai. If you are a well off South Asian, you can do alright for yourself too but there will be more discrimination for sure and you wouldn't want you're daughters to live there beyond high school.

If you're a poor laborer or housemaid from Nigeria, Pakistan, India, Philippines, Sri Lanka, you're screwed.

To the OP, yes Dubai/UAE is definitely better than most other Muslim countries, but that's a statement that doesn't really carry much weight given the precarious notion of the comparison.

OP here.

I'm a lawyer who represented domestic workers who were enslaved by their employers in the DC metro area.

To pp: you do realize that human trafficking of domestic workers/slaves happens in DC, MoCo, and the rest of the US, right? So is the US on par with those Muslim nations?

Let's not get down in the weeds. I'm more focused on why some Muslim nations are for all intents and purposes dysfunctional and seemingly incapable of functioning properly while others seem to be more stable. I'm clearly not delusional enough to believe that any Muslim nation has a good human rights record or recognizes the rule of law. I'm merely wondering how Dubai can seemingly tolerate a large number of westerners and Christians while other countries in their region clearly have not achieved that.

I know history (or lack thereof) is the primary factor.

I suspect governance is another.

But at some point it gets down to the community level, right?

Is it the influx of outsiders from the west, Asia and Africa, etc? Is it education? Is "tolerance" driven by money?

Anonymous wrote:My father works for the government in another emirate.

They are very very worried about ISIS. They are keeping a calm facade for the rest of the world but in reality they are completely freaking out.

Make no mistake, so is our intelligence in the US.

I am just going to add a couple of points here:

“2. Most if not all of the gross abuse of low-skilled laborers are not from the major UAE construction companies, the firms building the Burj Khalifa or the Dubai metro, but from smaller construction firms almost always owned by Indians. Does it make a difference? Yes. Indians are possibly the worst employers globally, they treat their own countrymen like crap and they operate in an employer-employee dynamic that is very peculiar and bizarre to the western mindset. They are slave drivers. That's the norm. My Indian friends even acknowledge this about their own countrymen. These Indian companies will recruit laborers from India to work on contracts in the UAE, withhold the contracts, play games with the salaries and get away with it, because the Indian employees almost never ever complain. They never file complaints with the UAE Ministry of Labour either in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, because they fear for their jobs, they're afraid if they complain they won't ever get the money or be fired and sent back home immediately. There's a significant culture of fear of your boss in that world. Blaming it on the UAE is not fair as it's a preexisting problem that comes out of India. And contrary to what you may think, the MOL in the UAE have actually attempted to crack down on these abuses. One perfect example is that a few years ago a new national law was passed requiring all employers of all companies to pay salaries through a government central agency (bank transfers the wages through this agency before it hits your accounts). This was deliberately done to make sure people were being paid and to develop a track record of companies that were late in paying wages. But if a company's gone bankrupt and the money is no longer there to pay back wages, it's tough luck. The money just isn't there.”

In addition to what is written here, I would like to add a couple of points. First, the films produced by Amnesty International, Vox, Vice, etc. regarding the plight of the construction worker are not necessarily untrue. There are labor camps that are truly awful. But, they are not the norm. Anymore than the new camps that have been constructed with pools, grass cricket pitches, central air and gourmet meals are the norm. And yes, they exist. I have been to them. The norm is somewhere in between. Those labor camps look and feel like what you would encounter in the US in a freshman dorm at a state school. They are almost identical to what I lived in as a freshman in college. The food is of comparable quality. And I have been to these too and have eaten there. And not as a curated official visitor being shown something that is glossed over. The principal difference being that the rooms are built for four rather than two.

As for backwages, PP is not entirely accurate. Since 2001 no work visa is issued unless the application comes with a 100% cash collateralized bank issued guarantee for unpaid back wages. How much the guarantee is varies on the size of the firm, but in the cases PP is looking to (small foreign owned construction firms), the guarantee that is for EACH worker would be several months of wages.

About the government confiscating passports. That is unequivocal BS. Taking someone’s passport and holding it without permission is just as illegal in the UAE as it is in the United States. Full stop. Do companies secure passports? Yes. Workers are encouraged to surrender their passports when they join a company to ensure it doesn’t get lost. Does this get misused? Yes. But, a worker has the right to get his or her passport 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If they don’t get access there is a very simple and swift remedy. Find a cop. They will go with a worker and demand a passport. And yes, though I wasn’t HR, I was called upon on occasion to go to the headquarters to go and open the locked file cabinet to retrieve a passport in the middle of the night. A chore that rotated amongst executives. And no, it wasn’t a western company.

While we are at it, let’s address “slave” wages. I am sure that the Amnesty pieces emphasized the fact that unskilled labor is paid a pittance. From our perspective, they are. It’s appalling. But, it is 4 or 5 times what they would earn at home. And who establishes those minimum wages? The UAE? No. The companies hiring the workers? No. The entity that establishes the minimum wage for an unskilled laborer, maid, driver, etc. is the laborer’s home country. Yes. The government of India decides what the minimum wage for a construction worker is. The Philippine government decides the minimum wage for a Pinay maid.

3. The majority of laborers come to the UAE and it is correct they make very little, but they actually do manage to save money and they send back almost their entire earnings home to India or Pakistan or Nepal or Africa, where they pay for their children's education, help buy a house for the family, pay off wedding debt or save for a dowry. Think about this carefully. Think about how the vast majority of the world lives on very little money so that the low wages on offer in the UAE construction sector is a big leap forward.

This cannot be emphasized enough. Many were born in the slums of Mumbai, Delhi, and Calcutta. For them, this is the ticket out for their entire family. They can afford to send children to school rather than pick recyclable trash out of landfills. After a few years, they are able to purchase land, farm, build homes and sell their products. They take care of family while others are expats continuing to build. Those Amnesty International pieces did not do follow-ups to see where many have gone after the UAE, did they? Workers are also provided basic healthcare. This is a mandated employer provided health card. Which, in turn covers basic course in health and hygiene, which, as you might imagine, is not widely taught in their home countries.

4. The UAE is a rapidly modernizing, rapidly developing country. There was literally nothing here fifty years ago other than several tribes living a nomadic lifestyle and a little pearl diving / trading along the coast. There was no formally organized country or civilization. Look at it today. It's impressive. But behind that veneer of modernity is a country that is changing rapidly. Just as the US did not start with all the worker's rights and women's rights and laws and protections from the get-go, neither did the UAE. But I'll tell you something, the UAE is catching up much more quickly than it took the US to free the slaves or give women the vote.

Just to add a couple things about women’s rights. There is a huge push toward encouraging women into positions of power and responsibility. They are not just kept in cages at home. They have an enormous influence. For a number of years recently the second most powerful political position in the UAE (Minister of Trade) was a woman. There are numerous women who have been elected to the Federal National Council (Congress, basically), and the Cabinet representative today from the Federal National Council is a woman. There are very powerful women in business as well. The Al Rostamani family, which is a huge business family there, is run by a woman.

Women play a huge role in the military as well. When the UAE joined the coalition formed by Obama to conduct airstrikes on ISIS, the first UAE squadron of F-16s was led by a woman. A Colonel in the UAE Air Force.

Going back to the labourers again, there have been huge strides in the welfare protection and regulations around employing labourers in the last ten years. I know this because I work in the A/E/C sector and when I first came to the UAE in 2008 none of the tenders for the big government projects had anything in them about managing labourers' welfare but now they all do. They all ask for commitment to various government initiatives, they ask for our HSE policies, our employee housing policies and camp management history, initiatives for workplace safety and all that. It's even starting to appear in Qatar tenders.

To bolster this, the banks have also become policemen. They simply refuse to finance projects that don’t establish that basic legal rights will be respected. And banks employ safety engineers and HR people whose sole occupation is to inspect those projects and ensure compliance with these covenants.

5. As with above, the legal system here is evolving as the country rapidly changes. The original laws on the books were passed for a much more traditional, conservative, tribal Islamic society. It's still a proudly Islamic country but one that wants to find its place in the modern world and there's a delicate balancing of the two. Unfortunately what it means is that people do fall into the cracks. It's one of the biggest frustrations of UAE society. A woman can be arrested and prosecuted for out of wedlock sex, yet prostitution is rife and visible in certain areas. Thousands of western couples live outside of marriage without a blink from anyone. Adding complexity to the situation is the concept of "wasta," which basically means the special influence held by certain Emiratis because of their family's social and political position. Someone with strong wasta can overrule the courts, for example. This wasta tradition is left over from the old tribal days where people organized their society around allegiance between the weaker and the more powerful through this complex system of loyalty and allegiance and certain families taking on caretaker roles for lesser families. There are certainly cases where the UAE courts and UAE police would have preferred to ignore but unfortunately if someone with wasta pushes for it, they have to respond and they will always apply the letter of the law (Sharia law, unfortunately, but that is their religion).

Just to add a couple of items, yes, aberrations occur there. They do here too. Just look at Rikers Island or Angola prison to find countless cases of the abuse of women. You will find that it is far more prevalent here than there.

As a woman, you are safer there. And far less likely to be harassed. If a man catcalls you here, that’s too bad. If he follows you around here shouting obscenities. Too bad. That doesn’t happen in the UAE like it does here. The reason is, that if it does and you complain, that guy is going to jail. Full stop. Harassing any one. Insulting anyone is a crime and it is particularly frowned upon when a man does so to a woman. And in day to day life, women enjoy certain privileges pink cabs (women drivers for women passengers and yes, they are pink), separate lines at banks and government offices for women (they are much shorter and easier to deal with) and things like that.

Wasta. It exists, but it is not that prevalent anymore and you cannot merely be an Emirati. It happens here too. It’s the privilege of being rich and powerful. Happens anywhere and everywhere.

Sharia law. Here, PP is 100% wrong! You are NOT subject to Sharia law in Dubai unless you are Muslim. Full stop. You are subject to the Dubai Civil and Criminal codes, both of which are structured on French and English law. Really, the only exception to this is in matters of family law, but again, only if you marry a Muslim or are Muslim yourself. And, even when you are technically subject to Sharia law in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, it is rarely applied (the same cannot be said in Sharjah, though).

One PP complained about “swift executions”. The death penalty is rarely applied. Rarely. It happens, but most people agree the cases are egregious. Like the young Emirati man who was executed in 2010. Took about a year. His crime? Raping and murdering a 4 year old boy. In a bathroom. In a Mosque. During Ramadan. Another, a woman was executed in Abu Dhabio a few months back. Her crime? Following an American woman into a bathroom in an Abu Dhabi shopping mall and stabbing her to death. And trying to blow up a dentist. And plotting various other acts of terror.

Now if you really want to talk about slave labor and passport confiscation on DCUM shouldn’t you start in DC? The United States government has established a program administered through the United States Department of State that is effectively slave labor. It is the “Au Pair” program. I know! That doesn’t count! It’s a “cultural exchange program”! Right. It is ultra-cheap (less than ½ the minimum wage) childcare. The participants have their passports taken (but they are secured with the host families’ passports!), and there have been countless cases where “daddy-host” believes “cultural exchange” implies the exchange of bodily fluids, with or without consent. So, before you start castigating other countries where this happens and where the government has taken a forceful stand against it (do we have a Cabinet officer (female) devoted exclusively to fighting human trafficking?). start by protesting your neighbors. And your own government which has chosen to stand by all 15 private slave trading Au Pair companies and against the 18, 19 and 20 year old Au pairs who are fighting to be paid minimum wage. Until then, why not try to see how other countries are trying hard to change and how this country is satisfied in a perpetual state of self-deceit.