Have We Achieved Our Rights

Coming back to Dubai and why I should not crucify my fellow Indian expats – The city is going through a huge infrastructure boom. And this needs a huge amount of skilled/unskilled workforce. The cheapest source is from India/Pakistan/Bangladesh. But 75% of the workers are from India.
The recruitment agencies bring people from India, especially Kerala, by luring them with the prospect of good salary & better working environment.
But once they reach the country their dreams are shattered.
The monthly salary a labourer gets is 500Dihrams (equivalent to Rs 6000) and they are made to stay in labour camps. Labour camp is a like a huge mess – ten people are stacked in one room with a common toilet. They are given daily food, carried to worksite by a company bus and after the days job brought back to the camp in their dungeons. The work condition – think of piling or digging in the construction site at, 48 – 53C.
Here the newspapers would never declare temperatures above 50C, because as per human rights you have to stop all construction activities for temperatures above 50C. But everyone knows the truth and no one will say anything – that’s life.
As per the statistics released by Indian Consulate, the suicide rate among the Indian labourers is increasing. This year (2006), till date more than 100 workers have committed suicide. The reason being the same, they could not cope up with the living conditions and they were too afraid to go back sans they will lose their face with the family and the society.
In developing nations we do hear a lot of NGOs – mostly all socialites are attached to an NGO. But do you ever come across any of those creatures here – no way!! In Dubai you are to make money, do not care to bother about others.
Recently during the Independence Day week lot of good thoughts, Power point presentations were floating around in the Net. All of them glorified India, they exalted the growth and development in India, were proud to announce how Indians were taking over the world.
One said, 37% of the people working in NASA are Indians, 25% of the medical practitioners are Indians, and 13 to 36% of workers in IBM, Microsoft, and Xerox are Indians.
Yes, if this is the real statistics we should be proud, but will someone add 80% of labourers on Gulf are Indians who are treated like rodents, discriminated and given a status no better than a slave.
All these glorifications lose their value in front of the massacre of Humanity that takes place in the Gulf in the name of Money.
We the educated lot has certain responsibility towards our society and should not have an ostrich attitude towards things that pain us from within. How long will these festering wounds be sequestered in our hearts?
How long will we prove to the world that we are a nation with a cheap source of labour?
How long will the developed countries take advantage of our enduring poverty?
Yes, we are intelligent, we have the capability to rule, but as they say,” Charity begins at home”.

I, for instance, would feel better when poverty is eradicated, people are educated enough to call away the bluffs of recruiting agents and we all together can rise and demand our rightful position & status in the world society.