October 11, 2009
Iraq - Bangladeshi Workers in Double Trouble
Hasan’s 14-hour day starts before dawn, when he gets up to clean his employer’s house and prepare breakfast.
Hasan’s 14-hour day starts before dawn, when he gets up to clean his employer’s house and prepare breakfast.
As one of a number of servants for a prominent family in Iraq’s western Anbar province, Hasan scrubs floors, polishes desks, baby-sits, serves tea to foreign dignitaries and even cares for the family’s pets.
Hasan has worked for the family for eight months but has never left the property to explore Ramadi, the capital of the once-volatile Anbar province. He knows little of what goes on outside of the compound, which is exactly the way his employer wants it.
The routine can be dull. But what irritates him most is the traditional Arab clothing – including a box hat and a dagger slung through his belt – he must slip into when guests arrive.
In his home country of Bangladesh, Hasan only ever saw the uniforms in movies.
“I never imagined that I would work in Iraq in the house of a VIP,” he said. “I didn’t even like to see these clothes on television, let alone wear them. But I’ve gotten used to this new situation, even with the difficulties I face.”
Hasan earns 400 US dollars per month. The pay is generous, he says, compared to the salaries of other migrant servants in the city.
As in other Iraqi cities, thousands of foreign workers are taken to Anbar to do low-wage, unskilled work. Desperate for employment, Bangladeshis are snapping up such jobs in western Iraq, despite the region’s reputation for violence.
According to the Anbar labour commission, an estimated 15,000 male and female workers have been brought to Anbar province this year. Nearly 90 per cent are Bangladeshis, who work as waiters, servants, nannies, cleaners and farmers.
Many of the foreign labourers in Anbar were employed in the United Arab Emirates until the global financial crisis hit last year, leaving unskilled employees scrambling for work.
Iraq was one of the few places offering “good jobs and good salaries”, said Khaleda, a woman from Bangladesh who works for a family in Ramadi.
The employment of foreign workers has bred resentment among some in Anbar. The provincial council estimates there are 15,000 unemployed Iraqi men in the region, a former al-Qaeda stronghold now controlled by Sunni tribes.
Some worry that unemployment may threaten security in the province, driving young men to join gangs and extremist networks. While the United States and Iraqi militaries have stemmed the flow of weapons and fighters entering Anbar from Syria, trafficking along the western border remains one of Iraq’s top security concerns.
Sunni tribes that backed insurgent groups turned on them in exchange for financial backing and power from the US military and the Iraqi government. But their new alliances made them vulnerable to retaliatory attacks, and some of Anbar’s tribal elite worry Iraqi employees cannot be trusted.
continued ...@http://www.english.globalarabnetwork.com/200910103084/Culture/iraq-bangladeshi-workers-in-double-trouble.html
