UAE. 2013. Dubai. At the Ritz Carlton 5 star luxury hotel in Jumeirah, Alex from Ghana is the "Pool Ambassador".
UAE. 2012. Dubai. With the world's tallest skyscraper Burj Khalifa in the background, Pakistani workers clean up a finished construction site on a road bridge in Business Bay area.
UAE. Dubai. 2012. A Filipino woman handles the cash register at a cupcake shop in Dubai Mall, with Sheikh Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai is displayed on the shop counter. Nearly every job and task in Dubai is performed by foreign workers.
UAE. Dubai. 2013. Jumeirah beach. On the northern end of the beach, a short promenade stretches into the sea. Tourists walk in swimwear, while foreign guestworkers come out during lunchbreak to watch the beachscene.
UAE. 2012. Dubai. Two Nepali guest workers show a local woman the way at Ski Dubai, one of the world's biggest indoor skiing resorts.
UAE. 2013. Dubai. Outside the Dubai Mall, yellow-clad workers from South Asia build scaffolding, while native Emiratis walk by.
United Arab Emirates. 2013. Dubai. Always trying to break new luxury records, Dubai municipality has acquired a fleet of luxury sports cars as patrol vehicles. Here, the fleet commander waits for Bangladeshi guest workers to finish polishing the new Lamborghini Aventador, before going on patrol.
UAE. 2012. Dubai. A Filipino or Indonesian housemaid waits for the children she is watching through the glass at Dubai Mall's Ice Rink.
QATAR. 2012. Nepali laborers washing camels at a race track. In the Gulf states, guest workers perform almost every imaginable task.
UAE. 2012. Dubai. Foreign construction workers in Jumeirah, their faces covered against the blistering sun in 110 degrees heat.
UAE. 2012. Dubai. Foreign construction worker cleaning up in front of a poster advertising the Dubai Marina.
UAE. 2012. Dubai. In the building development of Dubai Business Bay area, construction workers wait for their bus home to their lodgings in labor camps outside the city. The workers are shipped in at dawn and work until sunset, when company buses fetch them.
UAE. 2012. Dubai Tired South Asian workers on the company bus that takes them back from the construction site to their lodgings at a labor camp outside the city. Workers often go to work at dawn, only to return after sunset.
QATAR. 2012. Doha. A foreign worker carrying a fish outside a burned-out labor camp.
UAE. 2012. Dubai. On a Friday, the only day off, Bangladeshi workers shave and groom themselves in the communal washrooms in Sonapur labor camp.
UAE. 2012. Dubai A dozen Indian migrant workers share this room, sleeping on the floor without mattresses to save space and costs. Living conditions in apartments rented by guest workers and company labor camps are very often of very low quality.
UAE. 2012. Dubai. In Sonapur labor camp, laborers freelance as barbers and tailors during their one day off a week.
UAE. 2012. Dubai. On Fridays, the one day off in the week, south Asian laborers play cricket outside their lodgings, on whatever open space they can find.
QATAR. 2012. Two hours drive outside of Doha, guest workers man a vegetable growing farm, irrigated by groundwater. One of the laborers peeks into their communcal lodgings, where 10 of them stay in a small concrete shed.
QATAR. 2012. Two hours drive outside of Doha, guest workers man a vegetable growing farm, irrigated by groundwater. Laborers resting in the evening, in the small concrete shed where they live.
UAE. 2012. Dubai. Bangladeshi street cleaner by Jumeirah beach, with Russian tourists in the background.
QATAR. 2012. Doha. Nepali guest workers gather in whatever green space they can find in the evenings on Fridays, like this traffic circle.
UAE. 2012. Dubai. With single men far outnumbering women in Dubai, the city is a regional hub for sex trafficking and prostitution catering to every social level. Here Bangladeshi workers visit a club with Bangladeshi dancing girls.
UAE. 2012. Dubai. With single men far outnumbering women in Dubai, the city is a regional hub for sex trafficking and prostitution catering to every social level. Here South Asian men visit a low-level brothel, where every woman has over a dozen clients per day.
UAE. 2012. Dubai. With single men far outnumbering women in Dubai, the city is a regional hub for sex trafficing and prostiution catering to every social level. Here local Emirati men visit "The Russian Club", where Russian and Ukrainian women dance.
Qatar. 2012. Doha. South Asian laborers gather at a Western Union to send money back home after pay day. The successful workers are able to send $50-$150 home each month, but many find that they are not able to make enough profits to save and send money.
UAE. 2012. Dubai. A Bangladeshi worker hold a portrait of his family, to whom he tries to send moeny every month.
PHILIPPINES. 2013. Manila. Two sisters greet each other with tears as they are reunited after one sister had been working in the Gulf. She is coming home for vacation.
Philippines. 2013. Bacoor, Cavite. Real estate advertising billboard standing on top of a slum. Many poor Filipinos see foreign work as their only way to climb on the economic ladder out of poverty.
Philippines. 2013. Manila On Mabini street, in Ermita, the hub for overseas employment agencies, where dozens of streetside emplyment agencies recruit workers for positions abroad.
Philippines. 2013. Manila A crowded classroom where young women train to be housemaids in the Gulf states. In a 3-week course, they learn skils like bedmaking, table setting, cleaning, shoe polishing and babycare.
Philippines. 2013. Manila A classroom where young women train to be housemaids in the Gulf states. In a 3-week course, they learn skils like bedmaking, tabel setting, cleaning, shoe polishing and babycare.
Philippines. 2013. Manila A crowded classroom where young women train to take care of children in the Gulf states. In a 3-week course, they learn skils like bedmaking, table setting, cleaning, shoe polishing and babycare.
Philippines. 2013. Manila At a recruitment agency, women pitch their housemaid skills to potential future foreign employers in the Gulf. In a 3-week course, they learn skils like bedmaking, table setting, cleaning, shoe polishing and babycare.
KUWAIT. 2012. Kuwait City. Maids from the Phillipines wait for processing after arriving the night before in one of the many recruitment agencies that places maids among local families. Filipino maids' video interviews for employment abroad
PHILIPPINES. Manila. 2013. Karen Tanedo, on only her third visit home in Philippines in the last 7 years, put her kids to bed during her last evening before returning alone to Dubai.
KUWAIT. 2012. Kuwait City. Maids from the Phillipines wake up in a dormitory just days after arriving in one of the many recruitment agencies that places maids among local families.
KUWAIT. 2012. Kuwait City. Housemaids-to-be form the Philippines wait in a storefront Housemaid agency in Kuwait City, where locals can come in, browse the catalogs of maids, and walk out with a new household staff.
QATAR. 2012. Doha. Life for a housemaid can be very lonely for the young foreign girls who work with local families. Often living alone with inside the family compound, they often face big lanugage- and cultural barriers between them and their employers.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES. 2012. Dubai. Foreign construction workers picking up a piece of litter from the fountain pool outside the Dubai Mall.
PHILIPPINES. Manila. 2013. Jesus Julian (9y) skypes with his dad in Dubai. They normally skype every day, when the father has his lunchbreak. Parenting by skype and telephone has become commonplace in the Philippines, with so many young adults going abraod to support their families economically.
Far From Home - the guest workers of the Gulf
This story explores the world of guest workers in the arab Gulf oil states such as United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait. While marketing itself as a luxury playgrounds of tourism and business, close to 90% of UAE and Qatar's population are foreign workers.
Most of these workers come from far poorer nations such as India, Bangladesh, Philippines and Nepal, and the workers often endure very difficult employment and living conditions. Oftentimes parents will leave their home country for a decade or more to try to build up savings for their family back home, putting a big strain on family relations.
The World Bank estimates that yearly sum of remittances (the money being sent home by foreign guest workers) amounts to more than double all official foreign aid globally.
