...

In addition to these serious concerns, UAE-based migrant workers face widespread abuses. Migrant workers form 88 percent of the UAE’s population, and the preparation and delivery of COP28 also relied on workers who have faced labor abuses. As Human Rights Watch has recently documented, abuses of UAE-based migrant workers are linked more broadly to climate-related harm.

The UAE’s migrant workers and their communities back home are among those contributing the least to the climate crisis, yet they are often the ones who have the greatest exposure to climate harm and who are struggling the most to deal with the consequences.

The following questions and answers address key questions regarding the failure by UAE, this year’s COP28 host, to protect its migrant workers.

• Are the sites where COP28 is being held in Dubai linked to documented migrant worker abuses?
• Did the UAE implement significant labor reforms in the past several years and how did it ensure that the government had substantially addressed abuses against migrant workers?
• Why do migrant workers continue to face illness and injury from extreme heat in the UAE when there are policies in place that supposedly protect workers?
• UAE and the Gulf region have always had hot temperatures. Why the focus now? And do countries that profit from fossil fuels like the UAE deserve any blame for increasing heat?
• What happens to migrant workers after they experience serious or chronic injuries working in the UAE?
• Why aren’t migrant workers speaking up more in the UAE to criticize all of these abuses, and will they be able to voice their concerns at COP28?
• Haven’t migrant workers traditionally benefitted from remittances they earn while working in the UAE?
• Are there other ways in which migrant labor abuses in the UAE intersect with the climate crisis more broadly?
• What will the role of migrant workers be in the UAE as it adapts to climate change?
• What should the COP28 host do to address widespread abuses against migrant workers?

...