Bad working conditions for migrant workers in the Gulf States

Bad working conditions for migrant workers in the Gulf States

Rosebell Kagumire writes about the dangers for migrant workers in the Gulf States.

Construction workers wait for a bus after work on Al-Adaid Street in West Bay. Doha, Qatar, February 1, 2014 Credit: Alex Sergeev

When you are on a flight with a regional airline on the continent of Africa, you will see the queues of young women in uniform going to the Middle East. For many of them this is the first time they left their county or village to get a passport for this journey.

Thousands of women go to the Middle East every year, mostly to become domestic workers. About 15 per cent of all migrants and refugees worldwide are in Arab countries, and almost 75 per cent are in the Gulf Co-operation Council states.

I spoke to many of the women. Often they know very little about the places they are going to. Many dishonest labour companies run mostly by the political ruling class organise their jobs and conditions. Most women are between the ages of 18 and 25, and they need to escape economic difficulties.

The situation of these women on planes is of course does not look as bad as for African migrants crossing the Sahel to take boats on the Mediterranean to Europe. Many never arrive. But the mass migration to Arab countries and the conditions they find there are still a big problem. We usually only find out about the terrible problems and conditions they find when they are sent back home in poor health or dead.

The conditions for workers made international media headlines when Qatar won the bid to host the 2022 World Cup in 2010, and rightly so. But over the years since 2010, so little has changed. Public pressure perhaps forced some changes, but they are a very small part of the problem. The system needs a complete change, and it is still against migrants with the few rights that they have only on paper.

Migrant domestic workers in the Gulf Co-operation Council states earn less than half of the average wage. They work long and unpredictable working hours, and they are one of the least protected groups of workers under national labour laws. The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre reports serious abuses of workers in Qatar, including wage theft, health and safety risks, deaths at work, illegal recruitment fees, racial and gender discrimination, and sexual harassment.

When the Covid-19 pandemic began, things got worse. At its start in 2020, many African migrant workers, especially women, ended up on the streets, stereotyped and targeted as ‘disease carriers’. Thousands could not fly home because of air travel restrictions. The many global economic crises – inflation, food and job insecurity – are only making the situation worse. Desperate migration is certain to increase.

The mass migration is slowly getting attention in public and in parliaments on the continent of Africa. In July 2022, Uganda’s government said that as many as 2,000 young women were leaving the country monthly.

In Africa, national and regional plans are needed to take action on desperate migration and to increase the pressure for better working conditions in the countries involved. The World Cup is over, but the need for serious changes to migration policies in Qatar and the Gulf states is not over yet.

NOW TRY THE ORIGINAL:

https://newint.org/features/2022/12/05/view-africa-migrant-workers-gulf

(This article is in easier English so it is possible that we changed the words, the text structure, and the quotes.)