Before his sweat dries
i remember reading sometime back for the first time a reported saying attributed to Prophet Muhammad, may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him. i don't remember the exact words, but the hadith is paraphrased as follows (it has been paraphrased by me so the following words are not exact as they should be): "Pay the labourer his wage before his sweat dries [from his brow]." According to another hadith, "One of the three persons that the Prophet (pbuh) will argue against on the Day of Judgement is a "man who engaged a labourer and enjoyed full benefit from him, yet did not pay him (his due) wages" [again, paraphrased].
This week, a 25 year old construction worker from India, Arumugam Venkatesan, hung himself from a ceiling fan in a house on the outskirts of Dubai, apparently because he was unable to pay back a high-interest loan he had taken in order to pay it to a company that arranged for him to relocate from India to Dubai. The company that brought him from India to Dubai had allegedly not paid his salary for months and, contrary to the UAE's laws, the company had taken his passport from him. Consequently not only were they, in effect, making him work for no wages whatsoever, but Venkatesan had no legal route for leaving the country had he even wished to return to India; the company kept illegal possession of his passport. Apparently a common practice.
Venkatesan is only one of the hundreds of thousands of construction workers who make the trek across the Arabian Sea from cities such as Dhaka, Colombo, Bombay, Karachi, Lahore. Some come by boat, some by plane. Many leave behind several dependents - hungry mouths they hope to feed through the foreign remittances they will send back home. In Venkatesan's case, according to the report, "he was the sole breadwinner in a family of six."
i tried to find some mention of this news in the English-language UAE newspapers, but have been unable to. However, the UAE-based Khaleej Times did manage to report yesterday that this year's Dubai Shopping Festival has been a massive hit, including with foreign tourists. $3 million and 220 pounds of gold are "up for grabs". Extremely reassuring to know.
This week, a 25 year old construction worker from India, Arumugam Venkatesan, hung himself from a ceiling fan in a house on the outskirts of Dubai, apparently because he was unable to pay back a high-interest loan he had taken in order to pay it to a company that arranged for him to relocate from India to Dubai. The company that brought him from India to Dubai had allegedly not paid his salary for months and, contrary to the UAE's laws, the company had taken his passport from him. Consequently not only were they, in effect, making him work for no wages whatsoever, but Venkatesan had no legal route for leaving the country had he even wished to return to India; the company kept illegal possession of his passport. Apparently a common practice.
Venkatesan is only one of the hundreds of thousands of construction workers who make the trek across the Arabian Sea from cities such as Dhaka, Colombo, Bombay, Karachi, Lahore. Some come by boat, some by plane. Many leave behind several dependents - hungry mouths they hope to feed through the foreign remittances they will send back home. In Venkatesan's case, according to the report, "he was the sole breadwinner in a family of six."
i tried to find some mention of this news in the English-language UAE newspapers, but have been unable to. However, the UAE-based Khaleej Times did manage to report yesterday that this year's Dubai Shopping Festival has been a massive hit, including with foreign tourists. $3 million and 220 pounds of gold are "up for grabs". Extremely reassuring to know.
posted by rolihlahla at 3:09:00 a.m.
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