The Corona crisis has caused concern among expats in the Emirates, who have suddenly found themselves unemployed, and many of them have accumulated debts while awaiting payment of their wages.
The Corona virus has had major repercussions on the economy of the Gulf region, which relies heavily on low-wage expatriate workers.
Migrant workers are the backbone of the economy in the Gulf, where they work in the areas of construction, services, and transportation, and now find themselves face to face with the facts created by the pandemic.
One of the workers, Cain, said that he left his village in Nepal and left his wife and 5-year-old son to work as cargo stacking at an airport in the Emirates, and he believed that he had ensured a secure future for himself and his family.
However, he became wondering - after less than a year has passed since he arrived at the Center for Tourism and Business in the Middle East - Was his trip from his country a correct decision after knowing that he has no work this month?
Reuters interviewed more than 30 workers in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah, and they all said that they are now bearing the consequences of the spread of the Corona virus, and debts accumulated on many of them, and even reached the point of hunger, if not for the help of charities, while they are waiting for work and payment of wages.
Some of them said that he does not find a justification for staying without work, and he wants to return to his homeland despite not receiving his wages for months, but has already traveled hundreds of thousands to their countries.
No safety net
Reuters says there is no social safety net in the UAE for expatriates, who make up about 90% of the population.
A Cameroonian worker who works in laundries said he had not been paid for months, and he now sells fruits and vegetables in the street to earn between 30 and 40 dirhams per day (between 8 and 11 dollars). The UAE government liaison office did not respond to the agency's e-mail inquiries about migrant workers.
Debt accumulation
The workers most vulnerable to the crisis are those who work in manual labor. These people get low wages, work long hours, and stay mostly in crowded wards, which were centers for the spread of the Coronavirus.
Many of them also pay fees to recruitment agencies in their home countries, which is common to employ people working in low-wage jobs in the Gulf.
Cain said he paid the recruitment agent in his country 175,000 Nepalese rupees ($ 1,450) to find work in the Emirates, but he is now not sure whether he will work again. The employer told the workers that they will only receive the salary when they return to work again.
Cain added that his wages were about $ 600 a month, i.e. 6 times the salary he was receiving from teaching in Nepal, compared to working up to 12 hours per day, 6 days a week at the airport.
He continued that the work stoppage struck him, and he was unable to support his wife, son, and elderly parents in Nepal, and Cain - who offered Reuters a contract of employment and other documents - requested that his full name or the name of the employer not be published; For fear of the consequences he might face.
Cain arrived in the UAE last October, and he thought he would work at the airport for a few years before finding a better job in which he might take advantage of his teaching skills, and now all his hope is to work until the end of the year to pay off his debts.
"The global economy is deteriorating, and this affects all businesses. I think it is difficult to find another job at the present time," Cain said.
Unpaid wages
There are no official statistics available on the number of those who left the UAE, but at least 200,000 workers - most of them from India, Pakistan, the Philippines and Nepal - have returned to their countries, according to the diplomatic missions of these countries.
Sectors such as construction and retail are plagued by troubles before the Corona crisis, which has exacerbated hardship workers previously exposed to delayed wage payments.
Mohamed Mubarak said that he had not been paid for about 11 months for work in the security field in one of the parks in Dubai. Mubarak (who is a Ghanaian) added, "The company does not know when it will be able to pay us wages while we suffer."
Last May, the UAE began easing government restrictions imposed to contain the Corona virus, forcing many businesses to close for weeks, and shopping centers, water parks, and restaurants - all of which employ expatriate workers - re-opened their doors; Which raised hopes for the return of business.
A Pakistani - whose name is Zulfikar who has worked in Dubai for 12 years - said that he returned his family to his homeland at the beginning of the crisis, but he remained hoping to return to work and share the room in which he lives and the rest of the money with about a dozen others who are unemployed.