shane smith: last time wetalked to you, mr. ben anderson, you had just come backfrom doing a documentary on afghanistan, following thebritish troops there. and it was a bit of a cock-up. ben anderson: yeah. shane smith: and now you justgot back from dubai. ben anderson: yep. shane smith: now most peopleknow about dubai because they're trying to be thehub of the middle east.
and you went and foundout some stuff about? ben anderson: the guys actuallybuilding the big, shiny skyscrapers and theworld's biggest mall and the world's biggest aquariumand all that stuff. the guys who are being paidalmost nothing to build it. shane smith: so they'rebeing built by slaves. ben anderson: that's notan exaggeration. yeah. shane smith: really.
ben anderson: once they findthemselves out there, and they realize how much they're gettingpaid or how much they're not getting paid,they're indebted by the time they arrive there. so it is bonded labor. we focused on the bangladeshiworkers. the local agents approachthem in their villages. say, you've heard aboutdubai, you've heard how amazing it is.
i can get you a job out therewhere you get paid 300 pounds a month. which to them is anamazing salary. pay me 2,000 pounds, 200,000taka, local money, i'll get you out there. it'll take you six months,a year, to pay off the 2,000 pounds. then you'll start sendingloads of money home. and before you know it, you'llbe buying your family a shop
or a farm or whatever it is. as soon as they land, theirpassports are taken away. they also then find out they'regetting paid between 120 and 160 pounds a month. and this is for six days aweek, 12 hours a day, and living eight men to a room andin what we saw were absolutely squalid conditions. the dream of escaping the drearybritish winters and joining the celebs in the sunis one many brits share.
so i pretended to be one of themand signed up for a first group tour that they promisedwould show me a side of dubai which simply can't be revealedfrom a web site or newspaper article. the first group sales team areadamant the workers building their project weretreated well. shane smith: this is what ifound interesting about this is, this is a common perception,even when i was there in dubai, is that,oh, it's good for them.
looks bad to us, but-- shane smith: yeah, it looksbad to us but, yeah, it's good for them. ben anderson: we can'tget onsite to interview the workers. we're going to wait until theyknock off, follow them back to their labor camp and see whatconditions are like on this, which is one of the mosthigh-profile projects in the whole of dubai.
this is pretty much how weworked for over a period of three months out there. sneak in or speak to them beforethey went into the labor camp. because there's a camp boss atevery single gate, stopping people going in. shane smith: you're not allowedto talk to them? ben anderson: no, no, no, no. so we would try and grab thembefore they went in and say--
shane smith: what would happenif you got caught? ben anderson: well, journalistsin the past have been imprisoned and been slappedwith massive, massive fines out there. first impressions are, if youdidn't know it was a place where workers lived, you'd thinkit was a place where machinery was stored. no street lights, can evensmels the sewage. just sheets of corrugated ironprotecting rows of huts.
it looks like a shanty town. so how many? there's two, four, six eight,eight people in this room? worker 1: nine. ben anderson: nine people. but before we could interviewthe workers, the camp boss turned up. there was fear among the unitworkers about speaking to us. they felt they could be sackedand sent home if they were
discovered speaking out. that shot is basically myvision of dubai now. all the glittering skyscraperson the horizon, and you're in this sort of black holea few miles away. which is where theseguys live. shane smith: so what arewe going to see now? ben anderson: we met an indianagent who's been sending workers to dubai for years,making a lot of money. and they complained to her alot, and she just put it down
to them whinging. but these guys were particularlypersistent, so she thought she'd investigate. when she finally found theseguys-- it took her two months to find these guys-- it madeher so angry that she's now the first-- as far as i know-- first agent to speak out aboutthis, and speak out with us. as we drove into it, she said,that building over there, that's it.
you wouldn't even keep cattlein that building. the story of the migrantworkers is the dark side of dubai. the side which the annual 1.1million british visitors to this country never see. almass pardiwala: we'll seethe living conditions are really, really appalling. almost inhuman conditionsthey're been living out here. this is their very, very, verybasic toilet facilities
available to them. ben anderson: that'sthe toilet. two toilets and one showerunit for 45 people. almass pardiwala: 45 people. right now, i seriously wish theworld would wake up and look beyond the glitterto the actual darkness which is there behind. i seriously don't think thereis a lot of moral consciousness amongst theemployers over here.
and i would not say justone of the companies. most of the companies haveabsolutely no regard for the human life or the humanelement of this job. that doesn't [inaudible]. absolutely no regard. no. ben anderson: you see they'rebuilding a fire there. there is a hob in the building,but there's no gas. they company doesn't supplythem with gas.
so they just build themselvesa fire out in the back yard. and that's how they cookfor all 45 men. shane smith: so they don't havewater, they don't have cooking facilities? ben anderson: no. they're completelyindependent. whatever they get, they scrapetogether themselves. we spoke to guys who said,all month, they eat bread, rice, potatoes.
that's all they eat. i said, what aboutmeat or fish? don't you eat evermeat or fish? they said, two or threetimes a month they can eat meat or fish. and we went into one kitchen,and we saw the guys cooking their luxury portion offish for the month. and it was like four guppies. i mean, four fishlike this big.
that was all it was. they're easy prey forrecruitment agents in their home countries, who charge themhuge fees just for the privilege of working in dubai. on average, they pay around2,000 pounds, a sum of money so high that they have totake out loans or sell family land to pay it. there are an estimated threemillion of these workers in the united arab emirates.
so if they're paying 2,000pounds each, that's some serious money. shane smith: what's that for? ben anderson: it's calleda visa fee. and it's supposed to coverthe visa and the flight. which, of course, is muchless than 2,000 pounds. but that's what it's called,the visa fee. it's actually the fee for theagent to arrange the privilege of being able to go andwork in this paradise.
shane smith: and is thereactually a visa fee that they have to pay the government? ben anderson: it's illegalfor the company or its representatives to chargethe workers for the visa or the transport. nick mcgeehan: therewould be a contract signed in the host state. and he would then beflown to dubai. on arrival in dubai,that contract would
effectively be ripped up. he would be paid sometimeshalf of what the intended salary was. and his passport wouldalso be confiscated. ben anderson: this scottishguy is very interesting. almass, the indian agent, was sooutraged by what she found when she found these workers,that she wrote to everybody she could think of. i mean, obviously everyone inthe dubai government, but
amnesty international, humanrights-- everybody. nobody replied. he's the only personthat replied. he used to work for an oilcompany in abu dhabi and was so outraged by what he saw beingdone to the workers, that he's now set up anngo called mafiwasta. and he was the only one thatreplied to almass. shane smith: wow. so nobody cares.
shane smith: so they're theforgotten slaves of dubai. ben anderson: yeah, yeah. well, they're largely not knownin the first place. these men were shunted from campto camp, before ending up here, either jobless or forcedto serve out their contracts. the families they leftbehind do not receive any money from them. there is no get-out clause. even if their passports werereturned to them, they
couldn't afford to go home. they're trapped. almass pardiwala: basically,yes, you can say they are in kind of a bondage to the companyfor the span of the contract that they are here. ben anderson: isn'tholding passports supposed to be illegal? almass pardiwala: illegal? yes.
there are a lot of thingswhich are supposed to be illegal, but they stillhappen here. and it's very regular. ben anderson: that happensvery often. there are some laws in place. for example, there was a lawintroduced recently where, if the temperature goes above 50degrees, i think it is, the workers are supposed todown tools and rest until it gets cooler.
as a result, the temperaturenever went above 50 degrees. shane smith: how canit not go above-- ben anderson: well, officiallyit never went above 50 degrees. i mean, it did go above50 degrees. but according to officialrecords, it never went above 50 degrees. so the workers neverstopped working. worker 1: [speakiing bengali]
translator: there isnothing for me. i've borrowed from otherpeople to buy food. it's been five months, and hehas not paid me at all. i have begged for goodor remained hungry. somehow or other,i'm surviving. my wife and children tellme to send some money or come back. where will i go? [crying]
ben anderson: it took an hourfor the workers to travel back to their camp. they wanted to speak out butdidn't dare reveal their identities. like every other worker we spoketo in dubai, they were in debt and claimed they werenot being paid the money they were promised by theirrecruiting agents. so i grabbed a hard hat andsnuck into the camp with a secret camera.
shane smith: did you have toshoot a lot on hidden camera? i mean, a lot of the interviews,all of the footage inside the camps wereon a hidden camera. shane smith: becauseif you get caught, you can get in trouble. ben anderson: and allegedly, thegovernment have got paid informants all over the place. in hotels, taxis, everywhere. so yeah, you've got to be reallycareful out there.
so basically the big sort ofmain thoroughfare that separates the accommodation fromthe toilets is just all deep, thick mud and,they say, urine and shit from the toilets. actually, the areas around thetoilets are the wettest, muddiest, and smelliestareas, so [inaudible] telling the truth. there were so many rivers ofsewage blocking so many of the walkways that workers hadactually set up a network of
stepping stones to get backto their accommodation. shane smith: so itmust have reeked. horrible. they said to me, thisis all raw sewage. and i didn't know whether theywere telling the truth or not. as soon as you get closeto it, it hits you. shane smith: so their toiletsare just going out onto the streets? the areas between the toiletblocks were the most
disgusting. there was no doubt that thisis where the problem was coming from. i wonder if the water works? they can't flush it away afterthey've used the toilet. i tried to check everysingle tap. a lot of them, therewas no tap to turn. a lot of them, you turn itand no water comes out. so yeah, they can't flush itaway, and it just sits there.
i got to, i admit, the fourthor fifth toilet, and i just started retching because icouldn't take it anymore. [sound of retching] shane smith: and you'renot a squeamish guy. you've been to afghanistan,you've been to the congo, you've been to all thebad places on earth. ben anderson: i worked as anundertaker with dead bodies. shane smith: you workedas an undertaker. so this has got tobe pretty bad.
ben anderson: and the workersi spoke to that night said, this is good, comparedto how it has been. in a statement, the companyblamed the workers, saying their "standards of cleanlinessand hygiene are not up to your orour standards. it is very difficult to changethe habits that they unfortunately bring with themfrom their countries of origin." panorama has obtained documentswhich reveal it's
more likely to be arabtec's owncleaning regime which is the problem. a day before i'd filmed in thecamp toilets in january, the dubai authorities warned arabtecabout insufficient cleaning of toilets. shane smith: so the governmentknows about it. what are they doing about it? ben anderson: we were quiteimpressed that the government had been there and said thesituation was critical.
but they fined them2,000 pounds. shane smith: and they hadn'tdone anything? it was still awfula month later. and we've put these allegationsto the company, and they basically say it'sthe workers fault. trade unions and collectivebargaining are illegal in dubai. with the companies themselvesnow suffering because of the international financial crisis,the consequences of
complaining are worsethan ever before. worker 1: [speaking bengali] translator: they're telling,now that you have come, you stay and work. if we find any mistakes inyour work, then finish. back to bangladesh. we will no longer keep you. if you work well, if thecompany prospers in the future, we will see what canbe arranged for you.
ben anderson: do you thinkthere's a chance things could improve for you here? translator: we have nohope for the future. we are helpless. shane smith: so you've got threemillion workers that are brought over. their passports aretaken away. they're not getting paid themoney that they should. in fact, they don't have enoughmoney really, to eat.
they have squalid conditions,raw sewage. you just came back from there. how do you feel coming backfrom the city of lights? ben anderson: the reality ofdubai is the complete opposite to what you see on televisionand in magazines. in fact, i asked the indianagent, i said, what do you think of now when you see allthese glossy pictures and videos from dubai? she said, now i justsee skeletons.
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