Expo 2020's Workers Expose the Lies of the UAE After Being Subjected to Severe Violations

Human rights groups and interviews conducted by the Associated Press with more than 20 workers at the Expo 2020, which is hosted by the UAE, revealed that a large number of workers were subjected to severe violations, according to a report by The Washington Post, on November 30, 2021.

Dubai has spent nearly $7 billion to hold the Expo 2020, which had been postponed due to the COVID pandemic; it hopes to attract about 25 million visitors to the fair, which was launched at the beginning of last October.

Through the world fair, the UAE sought to create an impression without impurities, given that it is the first site in the Middle East to host the World Expo. Especially through allegations that the World Fair supports the divisive Emirati labor system, which has long been accused of mistreatment of workers, whether through the sponsorship system that restricts them, or according to working conditions, wages and food.

According to numerous testimonies, contractors provide more benefits and compensation to Expo workers than anywhere else in the UAE.

It is noteworthy that the Expo is an international fair that is held every 5 years in a different country, lasts for a maximum period of 6 months, and its aim is to exchange ideas and inventions between different countries of the world.

However, violations against Expo workers continued, with the help of the UAE's labor sponsorship scheme, according to human rights organizations.

Expo workers interviewed by The Associated Press described other forms of Emirati exploitation of which the lack of adequate food was a primary concern. Many also complained of long working hours in deadly hot weather, which can reach 70 hours per week.

Workers also complained of having to pay exorbitant and illegal fees to local recruitment firms in order to work at the World Expo, employers confiscating their passports, failure to keep promises of wages, and crowded and unsanitary living conditions.

In a related context, the Business and Human Rights Monitor also revealed in a briefing on its official website on November 14, 2021, that “Migrant workers across the Emirates continue to suffer severe and frequent labor abuses.”

“Nearly 8 million workers in the UAE remain vulnerable to serious abuse due to recruitment through the exploitative sponsorship system, and weak enforcement of regulations, as well as reduced freedom for workers to change employers,” the Monitor added.

The Monitor has also documented 177 cases of violations against workers in the UAE since 2016, half of which occurred in Dubai, where about 26,900 workers were affected by these violations.

It is noteworthy that the UAE depends on low-paid migrant workers from Africa, Asia and Arab countries to maintain its economy. However, it faces long standing criticism from human rights groups for its poor treatment of these workers.

 

Exploitation and Persecution

Equidem, a labor rights consultancy, had documented several cases of abuse at an Expo construction site when the pandemic began.

Workers said they starved because their employers withheld for 5 months the wages they had promised and cut off work benefits.

Some of them were even deprived of their documents, unable to change jobs or leave the country, and many of these lived in overcrowded accommodation.

 

 

“Security guards at the Expo are working the longest working hours, which may reach 13 hours a day, which includes a 40-minute lunch break with the exception of short rest times. They spend their working hours in extremely hot weather, and the temperatures in Dubai exceed 50 degrees Celsius in the summer,” The Associated Press reported.

In turn, an Indian guard working with First Security Group at Expo, a company based in Dubai, said: “If you arrive late, or if you close your eyes at work, or if you go inside several times during the day, at least one day’s wages will be deducted from your salary.”

In response to the company's report, Expo organizers released a statement acknowledging that the issues of concern regularly raised by workers include wage payments and food, without elaborating.

While neither the Expo organizers nor the UAE authorities responded to any inquiries from The Associated Press regarding alleged worker mistreatment, including reports of illegal recruitment fees being paid and passport confiscations.

In turn, the legal advisor, Mohammed bin Saqr al-Zaabi, said in a statement to Al-Estiklal that: “The UAE’s main problem is the migrant labor force, which for it constitutes 100% of its needs, which is considered one of the weakest groups in society. It has no unions or bodies to represent it and defend and protect its rights.”

“The laws of the UAE criminalize strikes and demonstrations, which are the means of expression in most countries to demand rights. Also, revealing the bad conditions that workers are exposed to, may put the worker himself under the microscope of the surveillance of the security services, and then restrict him and expel him from the country,” al-Zaabi explained.

“The UAE, in order to evade the violations that workers working in local or federal government institutions were subjected to, has given these businesses to private companies that may be owned by some members of the ruling families or some of those around them. Those who reduce workers’ salaries and increase their working hours to remove embarrassment from the state,” he pointed out.

On the other hand, the Emirati legal advisor explained that “the workers' tragedy starts from their countries with recruitment companies that demand large sums of money to provide job opportunities in the UAE, and it does not end with some sponsors who use sponsorship as a source of income to bring those who need to work in the country.”

“The confiscation of workers’ passports is a widespread and well-known phenomenon because the sponsorship system links the worker with his sponsor as a matter of protecting the sponsor, which prevents the worker from movement and travel without his permission. These practices exist and I don't think they will ever end, because foreign workers in the UAE constitute the bulk of the country's population, and it is without a force to defend, represent and protect it,” al-Zaabi also noted.

Regarding the UAE's failure to respond to the human rights violations being raised around it, al-Zaabi explained that: “The behavior of the UAE is usually by ignoring or marketing counter-propaganda against the parties that convey an image of what is happening inside the country of violations to polish the image of the rulers of the UAE before the world, even if this is at the expense of the lives, security, freedom and dignity of vulnerable workers.”

 

Severe Labor Abuses

On October 2, the Expo 2020 in Dubai admitted for the first time that 5 workers died on the site during the construction of the world fair, then the fair apologized and described the initial number of victims as an error, there have been 3 work-related deaths and 72 serious injuries so far, according to Bloomberg.

The inconsistent statements came after the UAE authorities refused for several months to provide any figures on construction-related losses in the run-up to the fair, and after the European Parliament called, in mid-September, for countries not to participate in the Dubai Expo, in which it referred to the inhuman practices of the United Arab Emirates against foreign workers, which it said were exacerbated during the outbreak of the Corona epidemic.

“Companies and construction companies are forcing workers to sign untranslated documents, their passports are confiscated, they are subjected to harsh working hours in unsafe weather conditions, and they are provided with unsanitary housing,” the European Parliament statement also said.

In a press conference after the opening day of the fair, a spokesman for the Expo, Sconaid McGeachin, said: “The UAE authorities will provide more information on the victims of the workers who built the site from scratch at an unspecified later time.”

“Authorities were aware of cases involving contractors withholding passports and engaging in suspicious employment practices and workplace safety violations at the site,” McGeachin also acknowledged.

“We have taken steps to ensure that these matters are addressed, and we got involved a lot in the issues related to that,” a spokesman for the Expo added, without elaborating.

McGeachin also revealed that 200,000 workers built the World Expo site in a period of about 240 million hours.

In a country that boasts of technological advancement and wealth in the billions, but still maintains a system where fleeing from an employer is a reason for detention or deportation.

An investigative report published by Reuters on the Thomas Reuters Foundation revealed slavery and exploitation practices, performed by sponsors of African migrants in the UAE who have been deported without paying their accumulated financial dues.

Since early September 2021, the UAE has deported nearly 400 migrants for crimes related to human trafficking, extortion and assault. This was denied by human rights associations and migrants, as they described them as fictitious accusations.