THE Gulf states need expatriate workers. Yet as recent tensions in Kuwait demonstrate, that need is not always reflected in the decent and honorable treatment the workers deserve, either on contractual or moral grounds. Reportedly, 1,000 Bangladeshis have been deported from Kuwait after protests about wages and conditions by cleaners turned violent. Similar things have happened in other Gulf countries. Similar complaints have been raised against them. It is not just that expatriate workers only complain of lower-than-promised salaries that then are often unpaid for months. Some also assert they are poorly, sometimes violently, treated by their employers, while housemaids regularly protest at sexual advances and being kept as virtual prisoners in a modern form of slavery.
Though angered by the violence of the demonstrations, the Kuwaiti authorities have clearly been stung by the angry claims of the demonstrators. A draft law is to be presented to Parliament that may impose minimum wage conditions — certainly for expatriate workers hired by the government and its agencies. It is also thought the legislation will make it a criminal offense, punishable by up to 15 years imprisonment for anyone to resort to violence against, or sexual harassment of, their workers.
Kuwait also appears to have been influenced by international public opinion, not least in countries such as the Philippines and Bangladesh that are major suppliers of expatriate labor. There is a real danger that even though salaries in the Gulf may be highly attractive when compared with the highest pay that might be earned in the expatriates’ home countries, if the work offered is unpleasant, dangerous or humiliating and worse, is not properly remunerated, then the supply of workers upon which the region relies so heavily will begin to dry up.
This is not to say that there are not many excellent employers in the Gulf who offer decent working conditions and who pay reasonable salaries on time. The problem is that this is only what is expected, what is normal and what is guaranteed and enforced by law the world over and thus makes no headlines. It is the unscrupulous or careless employers whose negligent or malign treatment of their employees hits the headlines, simply because such a thing is not supposed to happen in any decent society.
There is, however, a further dark element to the plight of exploited foreign workers in the Gulf, which may not always be apparent to the authorities in the region. The process of hiring overseas labor is all too often farmed out to recruiting agencies in supplier countries. Some of these agencies are excellent but a significant number are a disgrace. They dupe locals by promising them salaries far in excess of what the people will really be paid. Worse, they also charge the would-be workers huge sums of money in order to guarantee them a job. By the time workers arrive in the Gulf and discover the reality, which may even include having to pay for their accommodation, it is too late. Clearly if Gulf countries would regulate and, just as important, monitor carefully the overseas agencies that recruit their workers, a large part of the trickery and heartache could be ended. The crooks need to be put out of business rather than being allowed to continue because of official inaction.
