The United Arab Emirates like China. Economic growth without democracy and human rights (perhaps because of the absence of democracy and human rights, but that’s another story). Human Rights Watch has sounded the alarm: “The government of the UAE should take immediate steps to end the abusive labour practices that have helped spark recent unrest by migrant workers in Dubai”. The UAE is a federation of seven emirates (Abu Dhabi, ‘Ajman, Al Fujayrah, Sharjah, Dubai, Ra’s al Khaymah, and Umm al Qaywayn), and during the past several decades it has experienced rapid economic development and growth, but it lags behind in the development of its civil society. The country does not hold elections for any public office, and political participation is limited to the ruling family in each emirate. The government has not signed most international human rights and labour rights treaties. Migrant workers, comprising nearly 90 percent of the workforce in the private sector, are particularly vulnerable to serious human rights violations. A major obstacle to monitoring and reporting human rights violations in the UAE is the lack of independent nongovernmental organizations, actively discouraged by the government.

According to the Human Rights Watch (HRW) World Report 2006, in the past five years the government has barred twelve prominent UAE commentators and academics from presenting and disseminating their views. In June 2000 the government sent a letter to Abu Dhabi Television stating that “based on information from the administration we urge all producers to refrain from hosting the following individuals in programs for the Abu Dhabi channel and the Emirates channel.” The ban effectively applied to the print media as well as radio and television broadcasts. The UAE’s extensive economic growth has attracted large sums in domestic and foreign investment, and its recent construction boom is one of the largest in the world. Nearly 80 percent of the UAE’s population are foreigners, and foreigners account for 90 percent of the workforce in the private sector. According to the HRW report “There are persistent credible reports of abuses committed by employers, especially in small firms and against low-skilled workers. Abuses committed against migrant workers include non-payment of wages, extended working hours without overtime compensation, unsafe working environments resulting in death and injury, squalid living conditions in labour camps, and withholding of passports and travel documents by employers.”

In 2005 the UAE witnessed an increasing number of public demonstrations by migrant workers protesting non-payment of wages. During a protest on 24 September, 800 workers blocked a main highway in Dubai. The minister of labour and social welfare, Ali bin Abdullah al-Kaabi, has introduced a number of promising reforms that have met with stiff resistance from the business community. Following a surge in heat-related illness and injuries at construction sites in July 2005, the ministry directed construction companies to give their workers an afternoon break from 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. during the months of July and August. However, a number of companies defied this order and publicly stated that they preferred paying fines to compliance. Female domestic workers are often confined to their places of work, and may be at particular risk of abuse including unpaid wages, long working hours, and physical or sexual abuse. According to the U.S. State Department, as quoted by Human Rights Watch, human trafficking to the UAE is an endemic problem. Large numbers of young boys are annually trafficked to the UAE to be trained as camel jockeys. In 2005 the UAE government estimated the number of children working as camel jockeys to be between 1,200 and 2,700; international organizations have put the numbers much higher, at between five thousand and six thousand. Responding to international criticism, UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan issued a federal decree in July 2005 requiring that all camel jockeys be eighteen years of age or older. The law stipulated that violators would be jailed for up to three years and/or fined a minimum of Dh 50,000 (U.S.$13,600).

“One of the world’s largest construction booms is feeding off of workers in Dubai, but they’re treated as less than human,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “It’s no surprise that some workers have started rioting in protest. What’s surprising is that the government of the UAE is doing nothing to solve the problem.” The governments of the United States, the European Union, and Australia are currently negotiating free trade agreements with the UAE. Human Rights Watch has called on these governments to require improvement of UAE’s labour practices and legal standards before signing such agreements. Human Rights Watch also urged these governments to include, in any free trade agreements reached with the UAE, strong, enforceable workers’ rights provisions that require parties’ labour laws to meet international standards, and the effective enforcement of those laws.