Media Tools
BACKGROUND
The Media Tools section of this wiki explores:
existing web-based advocacy, tools and technology that our proposed idea can leverage
existing mobile phone-based technology that can serve as banks, social ties, and connections to home
censorship issues, work-arounds, and the implications of censorship on our proposed idea
In our research, we were surprised and encouraged by the attention to modern day slavery in the UAE. We are aware of the limitations of our tools to an underclass that is all but invisible. The fact is, migrant worker abuses occur in many countries in the gulf region. But we think we can make humanitarian strides from the ground up, starting with the UAE. By combining the power of existing tools and supplementing our own innovations, we think we can raise awareness of migrant worker abuses and rights to new heights.
ACCESS
We have realistic expectations about the ability of our proposal being able to help a large share of who we wish to serve. Based on anecdotal qualitative evidence supplied by people who have lived in the UAE, domestic workers are socially isolated and would not have access to the internet or to cell phones. However, construction workers can get on the internet and can use cell phones, though they might be shared.
According to Gapminder.org, 29 out of 100 people in the UAE are internet users. This is a low rate compared to most developed countries, but we believe it is the portal to their future.
The key access point is internet cafes. We talk more about access and the lack thereof in the Censorship section of this page.
It is also important to note how difficult it is to reach female domestic workers through their employers. Thus our proposed tool will also be a space that can host social media advocacy and international policy pressure, as well as attempt to build a network for these workers with a focus on the technology they are more likely to be able to access, such as pre-paid mobile phones over the internet.
WEB PLATFORMS
MideastYouth.com is a website in English, Arabic, and Farsi featuring young Arabs who are working against repression, discrimination and persecution using “creative media for social change” in the Middle East. It was founded by Esra'a Al Shafei of Bahrain who has received the "Berkman award" from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. The site enables users to:
post videos of protests (see feature below)
listen to podcasts (see feature below)
engage with an online community of activists
share any content with a variety of social media tools; for example, tweet the article “Migrant Domestic Workers in the Middle East”
Podcast
MideastYouth.com’s podcast interview on domestic worker abuse in the UAE and Bahrain is conducted by an author of MideastYouth.com speaking with the editor of Migrant-Rights.org who says people in countries where these offenses happen are aware but “happy to ignore”. The interviewer speaks of the difficulty of reporting the abuses because the Embassy will send you to the Department of Labor, and the Department of Labor will send you back to the Embassy, such that the workers are the “responsibility of no one”. Dubai has gone so far as to ignore UN recommendations, and “has batted these allegations aside”. The migrant workers are “voiceless” with no one to “speak on their behalf” what with the language barriers and cultural taboo of recognizing their rights.
The interviewee recommends policies such as international companies need being strict about protection of these workers, but they won’t have much government support so the government must increase legal recognition. Local NGOs could use backup - they publish press releases but can’t take action without getting into trouble. Awareness must be increase among locals, visitors, and people abroad who should “get blogging and have an opinion”. Facebook can make a difference this way by forcing the issue into mainstream media.
CrowdVoice is user-powered and hosted by MideastYouth.com. It has a page on migrant rights in the middle east with a rich array of videos, articles and other resources on instances of migrant rights abuse across the region, but does not have content from the UAE.
Since a good deal of media attention to the issue does exist on the web, we want to use this platform to group the UAE in with other offending countries as well as represent the UAE on the All Voices crowd-sourcing map.
MOBILE PHONE TECHNOLOGY
Wage Protection
The UAE Ministry of Labour has made some concessions in terms of recognizing certain worker’s rights. Its Wage Protection System (WPS), in partnership with the Central Bank, is an electronic tool that ensures workers are paid. Unfortunately, companies have claimed difficulty using the service.
WPS must go extra distance to make sure workers are not charged the recruiting agency fees their employers are supposed to pay on their behalf; the WPS should be able to be used for this too. Workers are still at the mercy of their employers and face the dilemma of quitting their jobs and owing money, or being exploited. The WPS should be monitored by a third party until broken wage promise abuse and job placement agency fees end.
A non-governmental innovative tool that “democratizes financial services for the un-banked” is Eko India Financial Services that could be brought to the UAE. With low barriers to adoption, it would enable workers with mobile phones to deposit and withdraw money from their phones and circumvent transactions where the money might not reach its proper destination.
CENSORSHIP
Dubai Media City
Dubai Media City was developed to house domestic and international press that would not be subjected to the Emirati’s strict media regime. But media publication that is executed outside of the DMC zone is indeed subject to the media restrictions. This article lists advantages and disadvantages of the DMC; for instance, a high-tech media infrastructure is a plus, and the government’s power over journalists is a minus.
Though it is primarily for commercial press, if an international new media center were to be located in the DMC, it could serve as a local and ostensibly protected headquarters for bringing attention to migrant worker’s rights. The tools of Global Voices Online could be put to work should the center’s press be censored. Staff could come from the home countries where the migrant workers are from to serve as on-the-ground translators and messengers to home country social media and press outlets. They could use the social media tools that the UAE community generally accepts, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr to drive awareness, enable home country members to feel more connected to the workers, and form a new media alliance to put a stop to migrant worker human rights abuses.
Global Voices Advocacy shares tactics for bloggers and activists to get around censorship and protect internet rights. We want to recruit migrant workers to blog for this site, which also offers a mechanism to create a mirror site of a blog for bloggers who are suspicious of their writing being censored.
Affiliated with Global Voices Advocacy, Global Voices Online has a map that represents social media censorship and coordinates activists to share best practices to work around censorship. The UAE has had instances of blocking social media like Facebook, MySpace and Flickr.com; VoIP sites like Skype; and YouTube. Incidentally, it is ironic that UAE has blocked sites containing adult content when it doesn’t pay mind to its prostitution problem.
Nonetheless, there is a community of web developers creating work-arounds to innocuous sites that have been banned by the UAE. The international attention to censorship gives us hope that this issue can eventually permeate the ministries of government at the UAE and elicit action.
Implications of Censorship
Unfortunately, with media censorship in the UAE, especially of new media portals such as the recent country-wide ban on Blackberry phones, we do have doubts that this platform could sustain itself. However, we are encouraged by social media movements such as those powered by MideastYouth.com and feel that our platform could break the proverbial glass ceiling for workers building real glass ceilings in the UAE.