Popular Pakistani qawwali singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan plays on Karachi’s airwaves as men offload sacks filled with cloth scraps from trucks and take them into warehouses. There, they’re separated by size and either taken back to factories or sold in markets as stuffing for cushions. But while the pay is paltry for all, men […]
The Gulf state has taken key steps to address labor issues ahead of the 2022 games, but workers say change has yet to improve their lives
Hanif Hasan is a 25-year-old Rohingya Muslim living in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. He has been unemployed for two years and hasn’t left home for a month, fearing arrest. “It’s hard even to breathe here,” Hasan says. “Every moment feels like it might be the last.” On November 15, the Saudi Interior Ministry launched a plan to supervise […]
The blockade against Qatar has had a disproportionate economic impact on foreign workers, though increased self-sustainability efforts may provide new employment opportunities.
In the Churu city of Rajasthan, India, a family of 10 is desperately worried. Six years ago, Yousuf Ali*, the third of eight siblings, took a loan to leave for Riyadh to work as part of Empower Contracting, a subsidiary of the construction business Saudi Binladen Group. The dream to support his family did not […]