Asian labourers work in a street in Kuwait City on Sept. 10, 2008. (YASSER AL-ZAYYAT/AFP/Getty Images)
Next to them is a Filipino man sweeping the street. His face glistens with sweat, and his blue uniform is dirty. The Kuwaitis barely notice him as they shuffle by into a high-end jewelry store around the corner.
In fact, no one in the country notices him.
But that Filipino man and many more like him are pivotal to Kuwait’s success. Oil may have made the country rich, but it’s the blood, sweat, and tears of imported labor that keeps it running.
Numbering some 200,000 strong, workers from mostly South Asian countries do the dirty jobs that rich Kuwaitis consider beneath them. From cleaning and waiting tables to serving as nannies and maids, cheap laborers are everywhere.
They are brought over by recruiting firms from impoverished villages in places like India, Bangladesh, and the Philippines with promises of a good salary. But when they arrive, these laborers find a very different reality.
Many have their passports taken away. The contracts they signed—with their decent salary, health benefits, and even vacation days—are revoked. Instead they are assigned to domestic jobs that pay less than $100 a month. They are even expected to pay back the money for their plane ticket.
“I came to this company being fooled,” says a Filipino father of two named Joel. “I was given a lot of promises, but they were broken.”
The laborers are then crammed into camps on the outskirts of Kuwait City. They are dilapidated places that look more like jails than homes. As if to stress that point, a Kuwaiti guard is posted at the front gate.
With no passport, no money, and already in debt, the laborers are trapped.
Many toil for long hours under the hot desert sun. According to Kuwaiti law, when the temperature hits 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit), all outdoor work must stop because the heat is just too dangerous. Often times, though, employers simply turn a blind eye to the thermometer to keep their laborers working.
At best, these South Asians are second-class citizens. At worst, they are modern-day slaves. At the camp where they live, one Indian man working as a chauffeur for a rich family explains timidly that he is treated “like an animal.”
It’s not uncommon for their wages to come late, if at all. When they do get paid, they send whatever they can back home to their children or elderly parents. The little that remains goes to food and other basic needs, but it’s never enough.
The unluckiest of the men are even forced to drive convoys of supplies to U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Speeding along the highway to Baghdad, they are regular targets for insurgents. Snipers, mortars and kidnappings are not uncommon. Some never make it back.
The workers live in fear of reprisal. None of them know their rights and they are too afraid to stand up for themselves. Impoverished and in an unfamiliar country that treats them with utter disdain, their protests would have little impact anyway.
Last year in Dubai, another country that openly flouts international trafficking and labor laws, 45 Indian construction workers were jailed for protesting their harsh work conditions.
It was a lesson for all the exploited laborers on just how little their lives are valued in their adopted homeland. It was also a sad reminder that massive economic growth too often comes at the expense of others.
Back at the camp in Kuwait City, far from the glitzy skyscrapers, the workers have a surprisingly positive attitude. They are well aware that they are being exploited and few know when they will be able to return home. But they also know what’s at stake. It’s something these men put before their own welfare.
“My family is expecting me to send money home for my children’s education,” Joel says, echoing the motivation that keeps these workers going. “If they lose me, their lives will be terrible.”
Chris Mallinos is a Toronto-based journalist whose work has appeared on six continents and in seven languages. You can reach him at www.chrismallinos.com
