UK’s Anti-Slavery International Featured on BBC

Free the Slaves partner in the U.K., Anti-Slavery International (ASI)—the oldest human rights organizations in the world—was featured on the BBC yesterday in a segment on slave labor in Dubai. The piece was produced by veteran foreign correspondent John Simpson, noted for his war coverage, and reports on international human rights issues. Thousands of forced […]
January 21, 2011

Free the Slaves partner in the U.K., Anti-Slavery International (ASI)—the oldest human rights organizations in the world—was featured on the BBC yesterday in a segment on slave labor in Dubai. The piece was produced by veteran foreign correspondent John Simpson, noted for his war coverage, and reports on international human rights issues.

Thousands of forced laborers, mainly from South Asia built Dubai’s skyscraper boom. These victims of modern-day slavery often have their passports taken away from them by their “employers,” are unpaid—or paid very little—and, due to complicated migration laws, live in a legal twilight zone.

ASI Director Aidan McQuade  explains how the laws make this population vulnerable to exploitation: “200 years ago people who controlled workers used whips to enslave them. Today they use immigration law,” he said. “What we see in a lot of cases particularly the Gulf states is the rules of safe migration [governing the] entering and exiting [of] countries are so complex, so byzantine that it’s very very difficult for people to leave.”

Can you help end the conditions that cause modern slavery?

Related Posts

The Outlaw Ocean: Special Reports in August

Editor's Note: Free the Slaves is honored this month to highlight the investigative reporting of journalist Ian Urbina of the New York Times, creator of The Outlaw Ocean Project. His award-winning series first appeared in the Times in 2015. For the past four years,...

read more

Reviving the Fugitive Slave Law

We are deeply concerned by accelerated efforts to deport black Mauritanians living in the United States who run the serious risk of enslavement upon return to their home country. This campaign is particularly focused on Columbus, Ohio, which, according to the Columbus...

read more