Human Trafficking Around the World (10 page)

In her preliminary report, Ezeilo stated that Japan needs to increase internal efforts to combat human trafficking at both the local and national levels. Specifically, Ezeilo recommended that Japan increase training and coordination of law enforcement, lessen cases of victim misidentification by creating a more comprehensible identification procedure, sign on to bilateral agreements with nations of origin for those victims trafficked to Japan, and ratify applicable international treaties (UN News Center, 2009). Ezeilo also suggested that Japan improve labor inspections, create a national rapporteur office on human trafficking, increase services provided to victims to ensure that they receive adequate shelter and resources, and make certain that victims have access to judicial remedies and compensation. Lastly, she recommended that Japan improve the relationship between governmental agencies and NGOs (OHCHR, 2009b). In response to Ezeilo’s suggestions, the Japanese government established a temporary working group, including NGOs, to develop the 2009 Action Plan to combat trafficking. Unfortunately, that is where the government-NGO collaboration ended. The 2009 Action Plan does not include NGO partnerships.

A significant step taken by the Japanese government is the revision of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act (Immigration Control Act) to prohibit organizations from collecting deposits from trainees and/or their families or managing the money and/or assets of trainees. The July 2010 revisions also establish a new status of residence for the Technical Intern Training Program. Trainees are now able to receive protection under labor-related laws and regulations, such as the Labor Standards Law and the Minimum Wages Law (JITCO, 2010). The government (through the National Police Agency) has expanded its international anti-trafficking relationships and cooperates with Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Colombia in the investigation and prosecution of trafficking cases. It also exchanges information with other nations through Interpol in order to identify those suspected of trafficking as well as Japanese nationals staying abroad who have arrest warrants against them for trafficking offenses (MOFA, 2008b; NPA, 2009).

The government of Japan has taken some positive measures on paper to combat human trafficking, but there are numerous gaps and issues with implementation that must be addressed. Law enforcement takes a passive approach in the identification of trafficking victims. After a raid, victims of commercial sexual exploitation are often identified after they have been arrested for immigration violations. Consequently, internal victims of commercial sexual exploitation are less apt to be identified. It would behoove the Japanese government to create formal victim identification procedures that focus on signs of exploitation not just immigration status, increase the anti-trafficking training of law-enforcement personnel, and continue to increase protections of marginalized and vulnerable groups. The government of Japan must also address the lack of prosecutions against traffickers and the prevalence of suspended sentences. In calculating the previously discussed conviction numbers, in 2008 and 2010, roughly 85 percent and 43 percent, respectively, of convicted traffickers received a suspended sentence.

The 2009 Action Plan states that “the definition of trafficking in persons includes not only the buying and selling of persons but also a wide range of activities such as the recruitment or transportation of persons for the purpose of, for example, sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, or the removal of organs” (Inter-Ministerial Liaison Committee, 2009, p. 2). The plan also touches on concerns mentioned by Ezeilo, such as abuses under the Industrial Training Program and Technical Internship Program, and the government’s tendency to focus its anti-trafficking efforts on women and sexual exploitation while largely ignoring other forms of trafficking that affect men, women, boys, and girls. Although mention of the latter in the plan is a positive step, there is no specific discussion of how it will deal with these issues. The plan states only that male victims may be identified in the cases of trafficking in persons for the purpose of labor exploitation of non-Japanese workers and that the government will consider establishing protection policies for male victims (Inter-Ministerial Liaison Committee, 2009). Thus far this has not occurred. Revisions such as those to the Immigration Control Act are certainly an excellent first step, though whether these changes will be properly enforced remains to be seen.

CHAPTER 3

United Arab Emirates

The company has all our passports. We can’t afford to leave. I went to a manager here and complained, and she said if you don’t like it here, you can go home.

—DEBT BONDAGE VICTIM IN DUBAI

With a booming economy, the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—made up of seven emirates: Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al-Quwain, Ras al-Khaimah, and Fujairah—has become an attractive destination for foreigners, who constitute over 80 percent of the UAE population. UAE nationals make up 18 percent of the population, Asians 65 percent, Arab expatriates 13 percent, and Europeans 4 percent (Caplin, 2009). Migrants account for more than 90 percent of the UAE’s private-sector workforce (U.S. Department of State, 2010). According to Dr. Anwar Mohammed Al Gargash, the minister of state for foreign affairs and chair of the National Committee to Combat Human Trafficking, the UAE has shown its commitment to combat human trafficking not only by endorsing international human rights agreements that focus on the rights of women and children but also by taking “a number of political and legislative measures” (UAE Interact, 2008). Regardless, the prevalent issue of labor trafficking remains mostly overlooked and unenforced. While all forms of trafficking are prohibited under Federal Law No. 51, the labor laws do not adequately safeguard domestic-service workers from forced labor. Additionally, without formal procedures for identifying potential victims among vulnerable populations, sex-trafficking and forced-labor victims continue to be arrested and punished for crimes associated with their trafficking experience such as prostitution or immigration violations (UAE Interact, 2008; U.S. Department of State, 2008, 2010).

THE UAE AS A DESTINATION

As many as 1.2 million persons from India live in the UAE. At least half of this population is made up of migrant workers. Along with Indian nationals, thousands of persons are recruited from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Korea, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Thailand for domestic labor or to participate in the construction industry in the UAE (U.S. Department of State, 2008, 2010). Common abuses that these workers face are unpaid wages, debt bondage from recruitment fees, confiscation of passports, hazardous working conditions, and physical abuse (HRW, 2009). In the laborers’ home countries, recruiters offer good wages and low-cost living in the UAE. In order to pay the large fees of up to $4,100 the workers often borrow money from family members, sell personal property, and take out loans from moneylenders, who often charge high interest rates. One labor camp supervisor in Abu Dhabi reveals a crooked system of brokers and agents that swindle large sums of money from Thai workers: “The Thais here mostly paid agents 50,000 baht [roughly $1,450] to get to the UAE, but before that they often had to pay a broker to get to the agent. The main agencies are in Bangkok, but the secondary ones are in the provinces. You might have to pay much more. You might have to pay up to 15 percent interest a month if you’ve got no collateral to get a loan to pay the fee” (HRW, 2009).

Upon arrival, the workers are commonly in debt and quickly realize that wages are often 50 percent less than what they were promised. A Bangladeshi surveyor’s assistant working on Saadiyat Island said he paid an agency $2,900 in exchange for what he thought would be a good job in the UAE: “I sold land to pay for part of the agent’s fee, and had to take out a loan for the rest. The agency said I’d get a basic salary of 700 dirhams [roughly $190] per month, but when I got here my salary was only 350 dirhams [roughly $95]. When I first came here I was going to save money for a house, get married, have a child, but now, this isn’t really possible” (HRW, 2009).

One worker from Kerala, India, earns $260 a month on Saadiyat Island as a security guard—only 63.4 percent of what he was promised—and is fined if his wardrobe is not up to par: “The agency told me I’d get 1,500 dirhams [roughly $410] a month and Fridays off, but I don’t get any days off. And I get fined if my necktie isn’t tied right, or my socks are the wrong color—that’s 100 dirhams. I’ve been here for a year. When I got here, a bag of rice cost three dirhams, now it’s six. I could have earned more money if I’d stayed back home as a Maruti car salesman” (HRW, 2009).

Other workers simply do not receive pay. One worker from Bangladesh was assigned to build temporary housing on Saadiyat Island but has yet to receive payment: “I paid 250,000 taka [roughly $4,100] to the agency; I sold my land for 60,000 taka [roughly $1,000] and borrowed the rest. When we got to UAE, we signed four papers but they didn’t give any to us. First we waited for 14 days, but there was no work. We went for training for steel fixing for 10 days. We’ve been on the island for two months since then, and we still haven’t been paid” (HRW, 2009).

As with temporary work visa programs in the United States, foreign construction workers in the UAE depend on the sponsorship of a single company. Those workers who attempt to seek a better job elsewhere are subject to deportation and are banned from returning to the UAE for one year, except in cases in which the sponsor-employer failed to pay them for more than two months. The employer can trigger the deportation of a worker by simply requesting that the UAE ministries of labor and interior cancel the employee’s work permit and residence visa, rendering the employee illegal. Thus unscrupulous recruiters and employers can exploit workers with minimal consequences. Workers have few avenues of protection. While the UAE law prohibits employers from working with agencies that charge worker recruitment fees, UAE officials state that they will not intervene in cases of contract fraud committed by labor agencies outside the country (HRW, 2009).

It is common practice for employers in the UAE to confiscate worker passports. Although UAE law prohibits the confiscation of passports, it also provides an incentive for doing so: companies face heavy fines if they fail to request the government to cancel absconding workers’ visas. The accepted practice has been for employers to request the cancellation by turning in the workers’ passports to the Ministry of Interior. To prevent workers from leaving, companies inform them that they must pay a fine before their passports will be returned to them. This is what happened to a Nepali worker on Saadiyat Island:

We’d like to leave now, but the company said it would cost us a 2,000 dirham fine [roughly $540]. If we had left the UAE within two months, the company says we could’ve avoided the fine, because we were still on a temporary permit, but now we have to pay the fine because they say they’ve done all the work to get the real work permit. The company has all our passports. We can’t afford to leave. I went to a manager here and complained, and she said if you don’t like it here, you can go home. (HRW, 2009)

On November 7, 2006, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the UAE prime minister, issued a decree ordering the labor minister to implement immediate reforms that addressed housing, transportation, a recruitment process for new labor inspectors, fast-track dispute resolution in federal labor courts, and immediate release from their employer sponsorships for workers who have been cheated on wages or not been paid for more than two months, if they so choose. The prime minister decreed that employers should be required to provide health insurance for low-skill workers. The reforms mandated that workers scheduled for return to their countries of origin be satisfactorily housed and fed while awaiting their departure. In 2007, following the 2006 decree that housing for workers be brought in line with international standards and conventions, the UAE minister of labor stated that the government had closed 100 Dubai compounds and labor camps where workers resided. The compounds housed hundreds to thousands of workers in shared rooms (HRW, 2009). Although these are positive steps, the 2006 decree appears to be mostly unenforced. Public health authorities in Dubai stated that 40 percent of the UAE’s 1,033 labor camps violated minimum health and fire safety standards. In 2008 a chickenpox outbreak in a labor camp was linked to unhygienic conditions, and 11 construction workers died in August 2008 when a 30-room residence housing 500 workers caught fire. Some of the workers had to jump out of windows because exits were blocked. In March 2009 the Ministry of Labor’s chief inspector said that in order to cut costs companies had cut workers’ meals from three to one a day and added as much as 40 percent to their labor camp population without adding space for accommodations (HRW, 2009).

Domestic workers (housekeepers, caretakers) are particularly marginalized because they are not recognized as members of the labor force and are thereby excluded from protection under UAE labor laws. Like many other forced-labor victims, they voluntarily accept jobs in the UAE and face the withholding of their passports, nonpayment of wages, and excessive work hours. In addition, domestic workers commonly face isolation, with minimal to no access to the outside world, which makes it difficult for them to escape and also makes them more vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse. Like foreign construction workers in the UAE, domestic workers are dependent upon their sponsoring employer, but it is their exclusion from protection that augments the sponsor-employer’s power and control (Caplin, 2009; HRW, 2010b). In addition to the abuses, domestic victims face poor nutrition. Eleven of 26 Filipina domestic workers interviewed by Human Rights Watch in the July 2006 report
Swept Under the Rug: Abuses Against Domestic Workers Around the World
stated that they were deprived of adequate nutrition. “I don’t want to die from starvation and too much work,” Rosa Alvarez told HRW. “Breakfast was water and bread, there was no lunch. They would say I can only eat bread. I lost five kilograms [11 pounds] in three months” (Sunderland, 2006).