PROPOSAL

Structural Violence: Lived experiences of migrant labourers in the United Arab Emirates - through lenses of second generation migrants

Abstract

From the year 2000 to the year 2009, the gross domestic product of United Arab Emirates increased at an extraordinary and unmatched average rate of around 6.62% at an annual rate, which was also fuelled due to the increase in the prices of oil and the foreign investment was also an important factor. Along with this growth, there were a number of issues that arose such as the systematic violation and infringement of the human rights of the poor's and the less privileged ones especially the migrant workers. These migrant workers were faced with a variety of unfair attitude and more specifically they had to face outrageous health disparities and inequalities.

Structural Violence: Lived experiences of migrant labourers in the United Arab Emirates - through lenses of second generation migrants

Introduction

There are about 35 million people who are living in the six countries of GCC that is Gulf Corporation Council. These six countries include United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Out of these 35 million people, almost 17 million people are those who are migrants. Out of these 6 countries, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar have the highest percentage when it comes to foreigners or migrants. According to HRW that is, Human Rights Watch, and ILO that is, International Labour Organization, around 95 % of the workforce of United Arab Emirates consists of the migrant workers, and almost half of these 4 million of residents had worked hard in the construction and building sector in either Dubai or some other emirate during times of the construction boom. The following research proposal highlights the major problems faced by the migrant workers.

Problem Statement

A great number of Western industrialists were drawn to UAE due to tax free salaries and also due to a number of other perks. Other than that, the Wealthy Emiratis who had large household staff had also further increased the influx of inexpensive, cheap and economical migrant labours in the state. The shortage and scarcity of any hard evidence and proof on the conditions and the mistreatment of the migrant labours and workers in the United Arab Emirates is very closely related and interlinked to the condition and situation themselves.

During the past recent years in UAE, the regulatory environment has somehow improved but still, enforcement of this regulation is quiet ineffective and sporadic which makes the official data pretty much unreliable and undependable. Other than that, the strict and severe control of the government on any outside research has also made it quite difficult for scholars to document and to note down all the problems and issues regarding the migrant labours, which is the reason due to which most of the data that is available either comes from the investigative journalism or from the gravy literature. Most of the data relies mainly on the reports form the ILO, HRW, UN, ASI that is Anti-Slavery International and some reports of ...