Ethics of having fun in Dubai

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Her home is San Francisco, She still lives there. She competes for China to boost her social media profile among 1.2 billion Chinese ($$ and fame) and to get her hands on millions in blood $$.

https://expatmadrid.com/spanish-hate-expats-americans/

Everyone hates Americans. What am I supposed to do? I didn't choose to be born in this country. And it's not like I support American imperialism or any of the other f***ed up s**t the US does.

I read the Kafala contract my GF signed on back when she worked in Bahrain; it doesn’t state any of those. On paper, it sounds like a normal domestic worker contract.

Yet in practice, the confiscation of passport snd deception are common, and it is illegal.
Yet workers are often too afraid to even report about it because they need the wage.
It is like a lottery, some employers would be so nice and give all rights and do none of these illegal measures while others may be complete jerks.

^^^ Yeah I did say in my very next post it's application is not consistent in terms of exploitative intent. Depending on recruiters, individual families, job type and countries levels of exploitation will vary.

I knew an older Indian man who worked as a construction engineer in Saudi Arabia in the 1970s. Because of his status (and wearing a corporate suit) his Arab co-workers and subordinates were friendly and liked him. But instead of using his name they all kept calling him "abdi" in Arabic (literally slave or servant) to his face but in a friendly and jovial way. He eventually reported this to the engineer in charge (an Englishman) saying he wanted to confront them about this, he was advised this - leave it be, for Saudis they think it's funny he's an engineer because Indians working in Saudi are all domestic workers - maids etc.

It could have been a joke but I think from pre-islamic times there was also thriving trade in Indian slaves, indeed the Himalayas actually have been called Hindu Kush (in Arabic/Persian) means Hindu-slayer as slaves from the Indian subcontinent died in the harsh climatic conditions of the mountains while being taken to Turkestan by traders and sent on to Persia and on to the middle east.

I wouldn't worry too much - the article that was referenced ends up talking mostly about expats in the context of affluent individuals who move there for "the adventure", rather than people who move there out of necessity. Presumably, you'd be more the latter than the former.

Refraining from vacationing in Dubai is a "choice" only for people with enough money to be going on overseas vacations in the first place.

Hopefully people with that much money, who refrain from vacationing in Dubai on ethical grounds rather than economic necessity, will also donate some of their spare change (and/or some of their spare time) to groups that oppose similarly abusive labor practices in their own home countries.

If they don't, then they are hypocrites (and/or perhaps anti-Arab bigots?).

Most Australians (almost 70%) hold a passport. Going overseas is no longer a luxury only for the elite jetset. I understand in the US it's half (around 35%) so I take your point.

Yes, agreed.

I don't follow?

Problem with your approach is that all you're doing is making it increasingly inconvenient for people to do the right thing. If you're going to say that someone is not allowed to be against slavery unless they personally donate money to anti-slavery institutions, then all you're doing is shaming people into condoning slavery.

That's not what I meant to say, although I can see how it might have come across that way.

It just seems to me that, if one were going to choose to do just one thing to oppose modern slavery, boycotting Dubai seems to me like a very odd choice. I can think of lots and lots of other things one might do that would be more to the point. And, for someone wealthy enough for vacation travel to Dubai to be even an option in the first place, donating a little bit of money to an anti-slavery org would probably be the easiest to these.

Anyhow, digging into this issue a bit further, I've found some very interesting info.

First, it looks like a wide variety of different people, with a wide variety of different agendas, are advocating a boycott of Dubai (and/or the UAE more generally), for a wide variety of different reasons, most of them having little or nothing to do with the slavery issue, except maybe very indirectly. See, for example:

1) TAGATU3: Sudanese Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of the UAE on the website of Spectre, a Marxist journal: "This campaign is organized by TAGATU3: Sudanese Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of the UAE, a group of Sudanese diasporans and allies working to end the UAE’s patronage of the RSF militia and its political complicity in fueling the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in the 21st century."

2) Why Boycott the UAE? on a website specifically devoted to advocating a boycott of the UAE: "The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has rapidly transformed from a regional oil-rich state into a sprawling global financial empire, leveraging state-controlled institutions, covert operations, and a vast network of shell companies to extend its economic reach across 38 countries. While this expansion is often portrayed as a success story of diversification and globalization, the reality is far more troubling. The UAE’s financial empire poses a direct and growing threat to local sovereignty, economic independence, and democracy in the countries it targets. The International Boycott UAE exists to expose and resist this hegemonic economic domination, which displaces local industries, undermines small businesses, and consolidates monopolistic control over critical sectors worldwide."

3) The UAE Boycott campaign and Its Implications for US, Israel on the website of Crescent (part of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought): "Over the past several months, a rapidly expanding grassroots call for Muslims to boycott the UAE has struck at the very heart of the Gulf monarchies’ most prized asset: their western-engineered soft-power project. [...] In Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE itself, broad segments of society now view their ruling elites as extensions of Israeli and American power rather than representatives of Arab or Islamic aspirations." (This page is dated Jumada' al-Akhirah 11, 1447 AH, an Islamic calendar date corresponding to December 2, 2025 on the Gregorian calendar.)

On the other hand, regarding the slavery issue in particular:

It looks like the UAE government has officially recognized this as a problem and, at least on paper, has begun taking steps to counteract it. On the website of the International Labor Organization (one of the heavy hitters in the worldwide movement against modern slavery), there is a page titled The United Arab Emirates ratifies the Protocol to Convention No. 29, reaffirming its commitment to fight against forced labour: "The United Arab Emirates becomes the sixty third country worldwide and the second among members of the Gulf Cooperation Council to ratify this instrument," 15 January 2026.

The latter is very recent. Of course, it remains to be seen whether and to what extent this paper declaration will turn into real progress.

Anyhow, it would seem to me that boycotting Dubai does not send any specific, clear message, given the wide variety of agendas of the wide variety of people who advocate such a boycott.

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 23 Feb 2026, 2:05 am, edited 3 times in total.

Some pages I've been reading about the modern slavery issue more generally:

- 50 million people worldwide in modern slavery and Forced labour, modern slavery and trafficking in persons on the website of the International Labour Organization.
- Slavery in the 21st century, Wikipedia
- What is modern slavery? on the website of Anti-Slavery International. (See also the Wikipedia article about Anti-Slavery International.)
- Understanding Modern Slavery Statistics on the website of Alliance 8.7
- 50 million people in modern slavery: UN report on the website of the United Nations
- Creating a Safer World, Together on the website of IJM (International Justice Mission). (This organization is controversial; see the Wikipedia article about the International Justice Mission.)

^^^ Almost all the countries listed as practicing forms of slavery are "no-go" areas with travel warnings for tourists and expats.

Dubai on the other hand is marketed as "family friendly" and one big Disneyland for kids and adults alike. Also a place for international entrepreneurs and businessmen to make money.

I've been doing some more reading on modern slavery.

Probably the single most informative site I've encountered so far is Walk Free. See especially the following pages on their site:

- Key findings from the global slavery index
- Global Slavery Index: Global findings on modern slavery
- Understanding the scale of modern slavery: "Modern slavery is hidden in plain sight and is deeply intertwined with life in every corner of the world."

See also the Wikipedia articles on Walk Free and their Global Slavery Index.

Also worth looking at are the websites of Hagar International, a Swiss-based international organization offering services and assistance to people who have escaped sexual slavery and/or human trafficking. Here are their USA site and their Australian site, and here is the Wikipedia page about Hagar International.

Another site I came across is Voices 4 Freedom, with a page titled What is Modern Day Slavery?. This seems to be a relatively new or relatively small org, which does not yet have a Wikipedia page about it.

By "countries listed as practicing forms of slavery," you apparently meant the top ten in terms of prevalence per capita. These countries are, according to Global findings on modern slavery on the Walk Free site:


However, these aren't the only "countries listed as practicing forms of slavery." Further down on the above-quoted page, there is also another, separate top-ten list of countries ranked by "largest estimated numbers of people in modern slavery":


I am ashamed to say that the U.S.A. is on this latter top-ten list. The UAE isn't, because they are just too small.

Modern slavery can be found in every country in the world, although it's a worse problem in some countries than in others, based either on percentage of the population or on absolute numbers.