This was sent to me by one of our Goanetters: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/relocatedubai My question is, Why don't the Indian free lance journalist or Indian media do some investigation about their citizens in Dubai? There was an investigative journalism made about this subject 'foreign labour in Dubai' by an Indian Journalist in UK and shown on UK TV. I don't understand why the Indians could not capitalise on this subject, and bring to light the atrocities dished out to the Indians in Dubai? ED. ------- The gist of the content: "The nature of my job not only entailed the inspection of construction sites but also necessitated late night meetings with local investors, high-ranking Government officials, overseas clientele and arranging sex-workers to entertain them, in order to secure the necessary funding for the company’s numerous construction projects. This is where I was subject to the reality of Dubai’s human-trafficking and prostitution racket. This inexcusable trade in human flesh is a high-profile activity in a region which hosts Islam's two holiest places –Mecca and Medina. We Indians readily accept the fact that India is not free from the clutches of human trafficking, the sex trade and child slavery, and that the Indian Government, despite undertaking several measures to root out this social menace readily acknowledges the problem our country faces. The Dubai Authorities on the other hand, have turned a blind eye to prostitution and illegal trafficking based solely on greed, hypocrisy and corruption, to the extent that when the Dubai Police's Criminal Investigation Department (CID) makes arrests, (at times) it is because they want to gang rape a particular woman. This is in a land where the legal system implemented by the Dubai Federal Judiciary is based on a very strict code of conduct known as Sharia law that imposes the death penalty for adultery and prostitution. This kind of hypocrisy and exploitation goes against all the tenets and teachings of our Zoroastrian religion and made me seriously reconsider my position.
During my three years in Dubai, I was witness and also subject to acts of racism, where people are strictly segregated and a hierarchy worthy of previous centuries prevails. At the top, dominating all other poor mortals, in their black or white robes, are the locals with their oil money. Under the locals come the western foreigners, the experts and advisers, making double the salaries they make back home, all tax free. Beneath them are the Arabs - Lebanese and Palestinians, Egyptians and Syrians. I realised that what unites these groups is a mixture of pretension and racism. We Indians come way below, at the bottom rung of this ladder, and it is indeed sad to see how many Indians, including Parsis, quietly accept and subject themselves to this inhuman treatment, all in the name of the money they worship. The final straw on the camel’s back was when I decided to quit my job and move back to Ahmedabad as my wife was diagnosed as suffering from the worst form of Tuberculosis, a drug resistant strain of Pulmonary TB. I was told by my company that I needed to complete my three year contract before I could leave Dubai. It all started with Legionnaires' disease, which she contracted from the hotel in which we were put up for a month, when we first came to Dubai. Legionnaires' disease has become increasingly prevalent in hotels in Dubai, due to the high flow of traffic in all hotels, including five-star hotels, which cannot cope with this traffic and therefore, have absolutely low or even zero maintenance and disinfection procedures of air conditioning ducts, humidifiers, shower heads, and any piping in which water can lay. The Legionnaires' disease worsened and escalated to Pulmonary Tuberculosis. Because of the very nature of Pulmonary drug resistant TB, which is an often virulent infectious and contagious disease, my wife was refused permission by the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) to fly back to Ahmedabad, and was quarantined for six months in hospital in an isolation ward. My pleas of help and support to the Indian High Commission fell on deaf ears, as they too had no power to intervene with the DHA. I also contacted the Dubai-based Khaleej Times and Gulf News, to tell them my about my difficult situation and I was subsequently threatened with imprisonment by the Government, which controls and oversees each and every aspect of the press, enforcing media-related laws, censoring publications and even going so far as to appoint approved and vetted editors, who "toe-the Government-line." Unlike in India, where we are so used to free and fair speech and freedom of the Press, my dear fellow Zoroastrians, that kind of freedom is absolutely unheard of and unimaginable in Dubai! Increasingly, my wife’s condition worsened, until finally, exactly a year to the date she contracted the disease in this land, my beloved wife and the love of my life passed away."
