Dubai: The New World, but is it fair?

Mathew Hulbert writes from Dubai and asks some searching questions about the city

immigrant workers are laying the foundations of this great new capital, but they themselves are often living wretched existences

Dubai has recently been described by a British newspaper as the new 'Capital of the World'. It’s easy to see why. It has everything you would expect: a breathtaking landscape, world-beating facilities and the soon-to-be-completed tallest building on the face of the planet; the Burj Dubai. Everywhere you look there is growth, a clear sign of the ruling Royal Family's desire for it to be a major player on the world stage, and The Burj Al Arab hotel stands as an iconic symbol of Dubai's increasingly successful economy.

Dubai is a spectacular city with a bright future. I've had a really great time here and I have been left open-mouthed at how much it has been transformed since the last time I was in the region. Which was 11 years ago, for anyone about to make a comment about my carbon footprint, and this is the first time I've flown since.

For most of the people I met in my fortnight stay, Dubai has been a great success story but, as a journalist, I couldn't help but ask myself where the dark underbelly of this place is, and I do have some concerns.

The building work being undertaken across the city is often done by low-paid workers from countries such as Bangladesh and India, striving to earn money to send back to their families. Whilst what they're earning might make them comparatively well off back home, in Dubai only their most basic needs are met and they can only just afford to live.

As these workers build the foundations of this great new capital, they themselves are often living wretched existences. Most of the 500,000 labourers currently living in Dubai are thought to be immigrants, and it is they who are building the skyscrapers which seem to be popping up at an amazing rate. In spite of the luxurious hotels and state-of-the-art offices they’re helping to create, however, their own living conditions are often squalid, with the Human Rights Watch describing them as ‘less than human’. It seems that amidst the talk and excitement of Dubai’s great construction boom, many are overlooking the rights of its workers.

There is some evidence to show that the situation is, at least, beginning to be recognised. An October report in the International Herald Tribune talks of 1,000s of labourers striking about their working conditions, and the Prime Minister’s decree to protect workers’ rights last year was a welcome step in the right direction. Groups of Christians are helping to make sure immigrant construction workers don’t go unnoticed by packing up boxes of useful items and distributing them to those who are most in need, and public transport networks have also recently started to appear to make transport more affordable for the masses.

There’s still a lot that needs to be done, but hopefully the new regulations and more people talking out, will mean that construction sites will be safer places to work, workers’ rights will be better recognised and the city’s new sky scrapers won’t, in the future, be known for their monumental labour violations.