Migrant workers victims of exploitation in UAE: HRW

Migrant domestic workers from a number of countries, including Bangladesh, are victims of exploitation in United Arab Emirates (UAE), says a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report. It says domestic workers from a number of countries beaten, exploited, and trapped in forced labour situations in the UAE. ‘Female domestic workers from the Philippines, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia, and elsewhere face severe abuse and exploitation by employers and labour recruitment agencies,’ said the HRW released on Thursday. At least 146,000 female migrant domestic workers – possibly many more – from countries such as the Philippines, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Ethiopia work in the UAE, the report said. However, some embassies or consulates in the UAE do not have shelters or adequate staffing to deal with abused domestic workers, said the 79-page report. The UAE government, about to take up an influential new role in the International Labour Organisation (ILO), has failed to adequately protect female domestic workers – many of them from the Philippines – from abuse by employers and recruiters, it added, according to a news agency.