Migrant workers face expulsion while Dubai represses illegal subbos

Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (AP) – Lights sparkle, the doors hang their hinges and the holes in the walls exhibit pipes in the building where Hesham, an Egyptian migrant worker, lives in Dubai, an emirate better known for his flashy skyscraper and penthouses.

Its two -bedroom rental unit is carved to house nine other men, and what it calls at home is a modified closet just large enough for a mattress.

But now, the government has ordered the 44 -year -old seller like this small space, which costs it $ 270 per month. He is one of the many foreign workers with low remuneration taken in a repression widespread by the authorities of Dubai on illegal sublet.

This includes parts lined with bunk beds which offer no privacy but which are as cheap as a few dollars per night, as well as separate apartments like Hesham, where plywood planks, dry partitions and plastic shower curtains can transform an apartment into a makeshift dormitory for 10 or 20 people.

After a fire during a height in June, Dubai officials launched the campaign on the concerns that the partitioned apartments represent a Risk of major fire. Some of the expelled people were left to rush to stay in the streets, where begging is illegal. Others fear that they are next, uncertain when or where the inspectors could appear.

“Now we don’t know what we will do,” said Hesham, who stays there until his owner expels him. Like others living in the cheapest and most crowded spaces of Dubai, he spoke to the Associated Press provided that his first name was used for fear of coming in the reticle of the authorities imposing the ban on illegal housing.

“We have no other choice,” he said.

The municipality of Dubai, which oversees the city-state, refused an AP request for an interview. In a statement, he said that the authorities had made inspections through the emirate to limit the risk of fire and security – an effort which, according to him, “would ensure the highest standards of public security” and lead to “increased quality of life” for tenants. He did not explain where those who are unable to afford legal accommodation would live in a city Luxury synonym Again Unions outlaws and does not guarantee any minimum wages.

Dubai Boom stimulates rents

Dubai has seen a boom from the pandemic which shows no signs of stopping. Its population of 3.9 million inhabitants should reach 5.8 million by 2040 while more and more people enter the shopping center abroad.

A large part of the Dubai real estate market is aimed at wealthy foreign professionals who live there in the long term. This leaves few affordable options for the majority of workers – migrants on low -wage temporary contracts, often earning only several hundred dollars a month. Nearly a fifth of the houses in Dubai was worth more than a million dollars from last year, said Knight Frank, the real estate company. The developers run to build more high -end housing.

This continuous growth has led to an increase in rents at all levels. Short -term rentals should cost 18% more by the end of this year compared to 2024, according to the online rental company Colife. Most of the migrant workers at which AP said said they only earned $ 300 at $ 550 per month.

In low-income areas, they said, a partitioned apartments space generally rents $ 220 to $ 270 per month, while a single berth in an undivided room costs half. Both can cost less if they are shared, or more depending on the size and location. In any case, they are much cheaper than the average rental of a room, which, according to the real estate firm, Engel & Völkers, costs around $ 1,400 per month.

The United Arab Emirates, like the other Arab Nations of the Gulf, rely on workers who are not paid from Africa and Asia to build, clean, keep taxi cabins. Only Emiratis nationals, which are more numerous than 9 to 1 by residents of foreign countries, are eligible for a range of government benefits, including financial aid for housing.

Large employers, construction companies and factories in hotels and complexes, are held by law to house workers if they are paid less than $ 400 per month, a large part of which refers to families abroad.

However, many migrants are used informally, which makes its living conditions difficult to regulate, said Steffen Hertog, an expert in the Gulf labor markets at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Repression will increase its accommodation costs, creating “a lot of stress for people whose life situation is already precarious,” he said.

Hassan, a 24 -year -old security guard in Uganda, shares a bed in an apartment partitioned with a friend. So far, the government has not discovered it, but it has reason to be nervous, he said.

“They can tell you to leave without option, without anywhere where to go.”

Fires remain a threat to Dubai

Dubai has targeted overcrowded apartments in the past in the middle of a series of high height fires Food by flammable coatings. The last series of inspections intervened after a fire in June in a 67 -story tower in the Dubai Marina district, where certain apartments had been partitioned.

According to a police report. This means that seven people on average lived in each of these units in the apartment tower, two and three bedrooms. Dozens of houses have remained uninhabitable.

There was no major injury in this fire. However, another in 2023 in the historic district of Dubai Deira killed at least 16 people and injured nine others in a unit that would have been partitioned.

Ebony, a 28 -year -old organic worker from Ghana, was recently forced to leave an apartment partitioned after the authorities discovered it. She lived in a narrow space with a roommate who was sleeping above her on a plywood mezzanine bed built by Jerry.

“Sometimes even get up,” she said, “your head will hit the plywood.”

It is in a new apartment now, only one room which contains 14 others – and sometimes more than 20 as people come and go, sharing beds. With her income of around $ 400 per month, she said that she had no other option and that she is afraid of being forced again.

“I don’t know what they want us to do. Maybe they don’t want the majority of people who are here in Dubai,” said Ebony.

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