The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has called on the United Nations to investigate evidence that thousands of migrant workers in the United Arab Emirates, including those building a new Louvre museum and the world’s largest Guggenheim, are treated as slave labour.
The confederation has called on the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) to investigate the welfare of workers on a $27bn (£16.6bn) complex of museums and luxury resorts in Abu Dhabi, and the conditions faced by other migrants employed in construction and domestic work across the UAE, because with “alarming frequency [they] are trapped in exploitative practices that may amount to forced labour”.
[…]
She said migrant workers in the UAE found themselves in effect trapped in the country as they were not allowed exit visas and often racked up substantial debts as a result of paying supposedly illegal recruitment fees, but employers were not prosecuted despite breaching domestic law and the ILO labour rules.