:: main questions and their answers :: 

How much are they paid? How much do they spend back home? How much is taken away from them? 

This is important to me because money is what brings and keep them here and even so, the money they earn is taken away from them by both themselves and their employers -- some of their pain is self-inflicted, and that’s interesting.

 

What conditions do they live/work/travel in? What keeps them from going home?

I see the workers going home on crowded buses, falling asleep on one another’s shoulders. I see the workers working all day in too much heat and with no break and no relief. I don’t see their home, but I’m sure that it’s terrible as well. I want to learn about it and help understand what makes them put up with the discrimination.

 

What are the views on women? Are they viewed as second best? What are their jobs?  

This is a quite a large and sensitive -- yet obvious -- issue and I would like to see how it effects the already terrible conditions in the exploited labor areas.

 

What are the pros/cons of live-in jobs? Pros/cons of working on building sites/work camps?

I’d like to see the difference more clearly. Simple. ☺

 

What is their “identity”? Who do they think their identities are? What do we think their identities are? What do their employers/embassy think?

I’d like to see who -- or what -- everyone thinks that they are. I think that self image is a large part of being able to stand up under pressure, and that’s what the workers do everyday.

 

:: Oh Yeah?! Prove it! ::

Step - by - Step Benchmarks

{{Use a variety of research materials to gather information for a research topic.}}

{{Organize information from a variety of sources in systematic ways.}}

 

{{Determine appropriateness of an information source for a research topic.}}

LIST all possible resources.

 

Qatar Embassy Website

Interesting sections:

Part 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 14, 15.

The Peninsula

Al Jazeera

Human Rights Watch

BBC News -- Middle East

IDENTIFY the resources' value and classify them into groups.

 

WILL USE:

Qatar Embassy - This is a really good resource because not only is an offical governmental website, but it evokes new questions that lead to new answers. The only problem that I can see would be that some information would be concealed from the general public for safety reasons, but some may be concealed under that reason, but actually for different reasons*. The site is written in rather "legal" language, but it's easy to understand once you have set aside time to really read into what it means and to think about what it's saying.

 

Human Rights Watch - This organization is quite reliable because it's priority is human rights in these sorts of situations. They have articles from all around the world and covers a large range of topics concerning all different issues in the different areas of work that workers flock to (domestic or worksites). However, I suspect that they are an organization that spends most of their profits on both the website (which may or may not be a good thing) and advertising... which can lead to people losing sight of their orginal focus and instead wanting more and more money**.

 

Al Jazeera - This is a reputable news agency that is worldwide and has produced a news special on the plights of the workers in the Middle East (which is both one-sided, but is probably more truthful than others are [the region is criticizing itself]). However, it is a news agency and like most, it's first goal may be to give the world news, but the second is to make money. Maybe they're telling us what they want us to hear, or they are working with one of the organizations trying to help these workers and both are reaping the benefits rather than the people who need them the most.

 

Recruitment of Women to Middle East - This is the only site that I have found that actually focuses on the recruitment of women to the Middle East as opposed to male construction/other dangerous work workers. They must have another view on the matter of domestic abuses of domestic workers rather than the construction workers (not that their plea is not great, but domestic abuse is rather widespread in both homes with and without domestic help and this could be another take on the meaning of 'Asian workers discriminated against in Middle Eastern workplaces" whether the workplace is a construction site or a home.

 

*I am in no way accusing the Qatari government from concealing information.

 

**I am in no way accusing The Human Rights Watch of losing sight of their original focus and becoming `money-obsessed'.

 

WILL NOT USE (BACKUPS ONLY):

 

The Peninsula - This source is too much of a newspaper marketed towards expats for me to be able to trust it completely. A few months ago, it published a story claiming that the rumor about cannibalism in the industrial area to be true because a worker who had "committed" the crime had been admitted to stomach pains and they had taken an x-ray that revealed a human finger -- a few days later, it published that the story was, in fact, a rumor that had circulated through the Gulf area. It just seems a bit too quick to say whatever anyone tells them to be considered that credible. However, they are a good newspaper -- when Storm, an expat's dog was seen dognapped and stolen they published a story both begging for his safe return and (after a 30,000 QR reward was given under a very "trench coat and sunglasses" meeting) an article showcasing the return of the pet.

 

BBC News -- Middle East - The BBC seems to have become a news agency that has a lot of money can has learned how to set up any given situation to make it look five times worse. they just seem to want to tell the worse side of the story rather than the optomistic side. They are a good news channel, but I think that they have become a little too big and a little too powerful for anyone to really make sure they're work is entrirely accurate and illustrates the correct picture of a given situation.

 

International Association of Labour History Institution - The website seems a little amateur and unplanned/messy to be professional, and that put me off right away. The information seems to be tucked away under a maze of links and options, and nothing is easy to find. It just seems either unprofessional, which is the more likely condition, or fishy.

 

CHOOSE whether or not you want to use pieces of information.

 

Qatar Embassy Website:

 

• Qatari workers are given priority -- in the labor law, it says that "NonQatari workers may be employed at times of need". (It seems like they use them a whole lot more.)
• Anyone permitted to recruit workers from abroad are supposed to be under the supervision of the Ministry and are not permitted to charge the workers for recruitment fees.
• Disiplinary action can be any of the following: notification, wage deduction, suspension without pay, postponement of annual pay, postponement of promotion, dismissal from work either with or without payment.
• One of the official reasons for dismissal is the "exposure of secrets of the establishement where he is employed". Er.. why are there secrets in the first place? >.<
• Wages should be paid either annually or monthly. Any paid vacation should be paid before the vacation is taken.
• If a worker breaks any machinery, they must pay for the machinery. T_T
• The max working hours are supposed to be eight hours.
• Only 10 days paid leave is standard per year.
• Women should be paid equal to men if they do the same jobs, but cannot occupy "dangerous" jobs.
• Women CANNOT be employed unless it is allowed by the Ministry.
• Women are legally allowed 50 days of maternity leave.
• Service contracts are not to be terminated due to marriage.

 

Al Jazeera:

 

<see Blood, Sweat and Tears notes -- I have them on a USB, but cannot open them on this computer since it's a Vista OS and I can't open Mac OSX work on here, nor does it have Mirosoft Word yet, and since it's the only one with internet... T_T>

 

Human Rights Watch:

 

Please see the following sections for articles to use for reference:

 

• UAE: Meetings Should Address Migrant Workers Rights
• Asian Migrant Workers Abandoned to Abuse
• Sri Lankan Domestic Workers Face Abuse
• Migrant Domestics Killed by Employers 

 

Recruitment of Women Workers to the Middle East:

 

• New restrictions imposed by India for Indian women workers in other countries.
• Women must be at least 30 years old and are required to be given mobile phones.
• They are to be paid the equivalent of 400 USD.

 

ANALYSE the information -- what relevance does it have? What does it mean to you?

 

The information above all seems to be relevant to my five questions above, either obviously or hidden in a deeper meaning that is subjectable to whoever is unravelling the facts. I would love to break down each fact and write my thoughts on it, but I fear that this section could become obscenely long if I did that, so I am just going to narrow it down to the pieces of information that I feel have an impact both on the situation at hand or myself.

 

"If a worker breaks any machinery, they must pay for the machinery."

 

This in itself seems a little stupid, in fact, and not just in the terms of "the-employers-know-that-the-workers-are-in-heavy-debt" but for the fact that they KNOW that they are not going to get paid in return for the broken machinery because they can't. Why waste the money and lose a pair of hands at the same time? And, of course, there is the fact that everyone knows the fact that the workers cannot possibly have the amount of money required to pay for a brand-new piece of machinery. Nothing in this situation is fair, both to the worker and the owner of the site/future building.

 

"Women should be paid equal to men if they do the same jobs, but cannot occupy "dangerous" jobs/Women are legally allowed 50 days of maternity leave"

 

Personally, nothing in these two laws seem very fair. Starting with the first: if women cannot occupy "dangerous" jobs, which men occupy, how can they POSSIBLY be paid the same wage? There is no way that there is regulation for this sort of thing even though women have been through the same thing getting to these countries as the men. I am under the impression that a full-time maid/cleaner will be paid even less than a construction worker just because employers seem to consider this work not as difficult, stressful, or dangerous (there are often cases of domestic violence/suicides with live-in maids, and those are quite "dangerous" in my opinion). 

 

Secondly, if women are legally allowed 50 days of maternity leave... then (by my calculation) that allows for two weeks before birth and five after birth (give or take a few days). This can have some problems -- what about sudden problems (miscarriages, emergency c-sections [who's paying for that, I wonder...] and other pregancy-related complications) that could call for more time off and even more expenses to be drained. And what if the pregancy was unplanned? That can lead to some serious problems with post-natal depression (which can lead to suicide, leaving an infant orphaned and without his mother/father/family in a forigen country with -- probably -- no will to protect him/her) and punishment through the government with pregancy outside of marriage. And what about an infant with a condition with Down's Syndrome, Autism, Spina Bifida or any other mental or physical birth defects? I just don't think that the alloted number of days will allow for such complications.

 

Even though paid maternity leave is not the standard in the United States (even less for paternal leave or in the case of adoption), in other countries (such as the United Kingdom and other developed countries it is standard. My cousin, who works in the UK, recieved a really generous amount of paid maternity leave for both of her sons births and she was allowed to ease back into work when the paid leave ended through a schedule which allowed her to be at work and to be at home with her sons (each with an equal amout of time).

 

"Qatari workers are given priority -- in the labor law, it says that "NonQatari workers may be employed at times of need"."

 

There is just one thing that I want to say here: what really qualifies at a "time of need"? Everything seems to, actually. I only see non-Qataris working on building sites.

 

Overall, I feel that the information that I have gathered is sufficient to both give me something to think about and to give me enough to write a heartfelt and powerful poem about what these people go through, both before and after (if there ever is one) their experience as workers in the Gulf.

PREPARE a poem based on the information found.

EVALUATE whether your poem portrayed what you wanted it to.

********

<woah, the formatting's a bit off there. please excuse it, it's not my fault.>

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