Ruby Grant

Questions to ask

1. What were their ambitions before becoming a worker here?
2. Is the government the one who makes the rules they have to follow?
3. What are the living conditions like?
4. Who harmfully treats them?
5. Are they their family’s only resource for money?

Why will the answers be good for my poem?

I’m sort of thinking for my poem that I’ll go through the life of the workers, how they got here, and explain what happens. I’m going to describe the life of them before they are workers, with dreams and ambitions, then why they became workers, and the difficulties here. Then I’m going to describe what a day is like here for them, and then go on about the rules they have to follow. These questions will be really helpful because I’ll really understand what it’s like to live like them. I shouldn’t say understand, because I couldn’t possible imagine what it would be like for them to live here, but I’ll get a bit of an idea of what it will be like. So then, I’ll be able to write about it (everything that I do understand).

Ruby Grant

Oh Yeah?! Prove It!!

·        Use a variety of resource materials to gather information for a research topic

·     Organize information and ideas multiple sources in systematic ways

     ·        Determine appropriateness of an information source for a research topic

1.     Recognize possible resources

2.     Indicate what resources will be good/bad to use and why

3.     Choose/use best resources

     4.     Arrange your information in a proper format     

     5.     Collect finishing touches to complete your information

     6.     Describe your information and make it expressive

7.     Experiment with your information by creating a poem draft

8.     Create a poem with info from sources

9.     Support and argue your point and your information

Step 1: Recognize possible resources

Al Jazeera, Info Shop New, The Peninsula, Ambe, Qatar Embassy, Qatar Sucks, Qatar Living, RFA (Radio Free Asia).

Step 2: Indicate what resources will be good/bad to use and why

Resources:

(click on the name to get the page)

Al Jazeera:

 I think Al Jazeera would be good to use in this poem because it has a lot of information about workers in Qatar, and has many facts about the conditions they live in and what they have to pay.

Info Shop New:

This site will be good to use because it has info on deaths and injuries of workers in the Gulf.

The Peninsula:

This site would be good to use, but I need to check that I can understand everything and they have interesting info.

Ambe:

This is an interesting webpage. It says all these good things about the company and everything, but when we watched the “Blood, Sweat, and Tears” video, the workers had been employed by them and were not all that happy with what they had.

Qatar Embassy:

This site has lots of laws of Qatar about labor, but it is quite hard for me to understand them, so I’ll have to make sure I can before I use it.

Qatar Sucks:

This site is really interesting because of the opinions given, and all the information the opinions are based on are cited, which is good.

Qatar Living:

This site has a letter that was sent to the Gulf Times about workers’ rights. This man writing expresses feelings towards his unhappiness of how the workers are treated, and he has some helpful information, too.

RFA (Radio Free Asia):

This is a great website with heaps of info about workers’ lives here in Qatar. It says of the problems they face, the money they have to pay (and that they don’t have), and so on. This is going to be really helpful.

Step 3: Choose/use best resources

Not Using:

-The Peninsula because:

This site is mainly about 1 project trying to help this problem, from what I've tried to understand. I want to use actual facts about the workers, but it's great people are trying to help!

-Qatar Embassy because:

This site is really hard for me to understand, it has all these laws, but I can't even figure out what they are!

**Notes from websites being used**:

-most Asian labourers (in the Gulf) come from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka

-forced to work in harsh conditions

-Thangaval: man committed suicide*

          *Indian labourer working in Dubai

          *committed suicide in 2005

          *not able to repay the US$ 1,200 illegal finder fee to the one who acquired him to

          Dubai

          *faced financial pain

-109 Indian workers committed suicide in 2006, just in the UAE

-workers charged up to US$ 1,600 (two years pay for them) by recruiter

--risk death, and only get US$ 5-US$ 7 per day

-recruiting agents, companies, and government officials all blame each other

Notes from Info Shop New:

-more than 500 Nepali workers died in 2007 who came to the Gulf

-most deaths happened in traffic accidents (work place hazards), heart attacks, or by committing suicide

-deaths mostly happened in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE

-Nepali Embassy said last year 301 Nepalese dies in Saudi Arabia

            >49% from natural causes

            >28% from accidents

            >13% from doing work w/ risks

            >10% from suicide

-Nepalese women still come to the Gulf even though the government has banned it

-12 women died last year, for the same job (working in houses) in Saudi Arabia

- 153 Nepali workers died in Qatar in 2007

-Qatar has the largest number of Nepali workers in the Gulf area

-Nepali workers who’ve died in Qatar: >66% died from heart attacks

                       >5% died from natural causes

-last year in the UAE, 49 Nepali workers died from their manual jobs

Notes from Ambe:

-“Ambe Consultancy Services Pvt. Ltd. Helps accurately place people with assignments, providing our customers with productive workers and employees with work that matches their skills and abilities.”

-provide potential jobs with promising careers for many thousands of hopeful people and other industrial clients in Gulf regions and the Middle East

-ensure only great quality candidates that are okay with the “job specifications” work for the clients

-many of the people recruited by Ambe continue being employed until a date they both agree on

-people recruited “enjoy complete credibility from their respective employers”

Notes from Qatar Sucks:

(Doesn’t work at home, so get notes at school)

Notes from Qatar Living:

Letter written to the Gulf Times:

Violation of human rights

Dear Sir,

This is in reference to the report, ‘Workers left without food, water in camp’ (Gulf Times, October 17).

To say that I was not enraged upon reading that article would be a gross understatement. We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent.

Most of us have a built-in allergy to disturbing or unpleasant information. The sad plight of these workers, who help to make this country the prosperous nation that it is today, is a reality happening or that happened not more than 50km from where most of us live now.

I have long held the belief that it takes a dramatic example or display of evil for the good people in society to be shaken out of their apathy and indifference, and galvanize them into action.

I would like to pose these questions to your readers: Is this unfortunate reality of the workers, this blatant human rights violation not dramatic enough to galvanise us into the right course of action? Or are we just going to slip into decadence, escapism and insulation from such harsh realities of the world in which we live?

To quote Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Is this inhumane treatment of the workers not dramatic an example for us to do anything about it? Or will it take an article with a headline like ‘1,000 workers die of lack of water, food, electricity in camp’? This is not the first ever happening of its kind, we have seen such articles, of a greater or lesser degree, crop up more often than not in this daily. We tolerate it because ‘It’s common, it’s trivial’. We embrace and nurture apathy as if it were a virtue.

I do hope that the individuals and companies responsible for such inhumane treatment of their workers be prosecuted and have their licenses revoked. What I found particularly morally shocking was the indifference of the Human Rights Committee (HRC) to their cause in spite of the workers’ efforts to contact them on their hotline.

I would like to point out to the HRC my dictionary’s definition of a Hotline - direct telephone link to service: a telephone number that enables members of the public to make direct contact with a special service offering information, advice, or help, usually on a serious or urgent matter.

I kindly request you to publish the names of the companies that commit such flagrant violations for criticism has to be aimed at someone or something specific for it to matter and effect a change.

Malcolm M Jennings, (Address supplied)

Notes from RFA (Radio Free Asia):

-many Burmese labourers are being sent to Qatar

-hearing about foreign currency earnings and promises of decent jobs, living conditions, and health care lure workers

-when the workers arrive, receive a rude awakening

-been said by the workers that “the agents in Burma manipulate and cheat us”, decieving the Burmese workers by taking as much money as they can from them and then putting them on a plane to Qatar

-they don’t care about what happens next to the workers

-Qatar’s population is 885,359 people

            *only 200,000 are citizens

            *the rest are foreign workers

            *believed that 900 Burmese are in Qatar

                >most of them construction workers

-some qualified Burmese nurses are sent to Qatar believing they would work as nurses there, but instead are working as house maids/helpers >women have to fast during Ramadan because their employers do, and they can’t leave until their contract ends

-they don’t know the local language or currency, so they are promised only about 800 riyals (US$ 220) a month, says one man

-they are unjustly given a home that does not have all their needs

-if they complain, they get sent back

-if the employers want tosend them back, they say they failed their medical checkup, and the workers have to  leave the next day without any payment

-the Burmese salary is between 600 and 1,000 riyals

-Filipinos get at least 1,200 riyals

-Syrians and Lebanese get 3,000 riyals

-have to stay until debt is paid

-“I feel like I was sold as slave here,” Mg Than said. “We are called to stand in front of the customer. They look at our papers, our contracts, look us over from head to toe, then if they don’t like us, we don’t get the job, and there’s no payment. I really wonder if they are selling us.”