Camp Sponsorships 2010: Fill & Download for Free

Yes. Firmly, yes.I’m a first-generation Vietnamese immigrant.My village in rural, central Vietnam belonged to the north border (Đông Hà) of South Vietnam during the war, near Khe Sanh. More bombs were dropped around this specific area than were dropped in Germany during all of WWII.My parents never graduated from middle school.I’m now 20, studying computer science at MIT, the lone member finally, finally able to contribute to a family that has experienced poverty for generations and generations. I’m going to work in the Silicon Valley this summer for a tech startup that will pay me, in 2.5 months, the equivalent of over 2/3rds of my family’s annual income, mother’s and father’s salaries included. And I haven’t even completed my BS, let alone my MEng.Let me tell you more.My paternal grandfather, a survivor of post-war reeducation camps, immigrated to the US through its Vietnamese Humanitarian Operation program. Through his sponsorship, I, the only child, and my parents left for this “land of opportunity” in 2004, when I was 6. I took some time to learn English, but hey, I did it. Citizenship came later in 2010.Despite the fact that I could never talk to my parents about the basics of long division and cell biology throughout middle and high school, I found myself perfectly capable alone. I worked hard without the privileges others had. We never had the money to afford tutors, music lessons, or SAT camps. Instead, I ordered books from Amazon and studied with what I had. Nobody saw my college essays, nobody provided any sort of guidance in anything I did. Everything I did, I did myself. Education was the priority.Harvard, Yale, MIT, and Columbia took me in with full scholarships my senior year. If that’s not opportunity, then I don’t know what is.So many people say that America has declined over time. While that may be true to a certain extent (depending on your perspective), I firmly believe that nothing will change the value of hard work and its role as a key to the doors of opportunity.Hard work got me here now.A country that participated in the sorrowful civil war between my people has seemingly turned the tables by allowing me to be the first in a future generation that will, quite literally, transform my family.I’d say that’s opportunity.

Being grateful to a religious group of a particular region for allowing Indians to grant a living? I don't understand. Do you mean to say that, that a particular religious group is doing a favour to Indian migrant workers?I'm grateful to anyone who is doing me a favour, including promoting my Quora answers. I always send thanks to them. I believe that's how a majority of people roll, not only Indians.Most people I know, and I'm speaking for them here, are grateful to their fate, fortune, destiny, gods, skill-set, parents, neighbours, etc, for having a job.Most people I know, and I'm speaking for them here, are not grateful to their fate, fortune, destiny, gods, skill-set, parents, neighbours, etc when they are oppressed in their jobs or face significant problems in their jobs.Indian migrant workers to the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), political and economic alliance of six Middle Eastern countries—Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman) are people who face significant oppression, problems and discrimination while working in these countries and continue to face them, because our government turns a blind eye to them, in spite of them bringing in huge remittances , because they are poor. Because as a franchise, they do not matter much to the Indian voting system.When asking this question the OP is indeed right that about the remittance part, as despite having a large skilled chunk of skilled workers, India receives half of its remittances from its semi-skilled and unskilled migrant workers part [1]. Here's a graph:​​And now, here's some reports and statistics for you that portray systemic violations of migrant workers human rights in the UAE and other members of the GCC. Please note that the absence of hard evidence on the plight of migrant Indian workers is tied to the fact that they are poor, as well as to extensive and stringent attempts by governments in GCC countries to thwart outside research on these issues (Speaks about something but we won't speak about them here right now).Human Rights ViolationsLet's pick up UAE. It stands out in the above chart, isn't it?Out of the six GCC countries, the UAE has among the highest percentage of foreign workers, with Indians forming the highest chunk in that group:​​Source: United Nations Population DivisionNearly 80 percent of the UAE's population are foreigners, and foreigners account for 90 percent of the workforce in the private sector, including domestic workers. As of May 2006, according to the Ministry of Labor, there were 2,738,000 migrant workers in the country. The UAE's economic growth has attracted large domestic and foreign investments and the current construction boom is one of the largest in the world. Exploitation of migrant construction workers by employers, especially low-skilled workers in small firms, is particularly severe. Immigration sponsorship laws that grant employers extraordinary power over the lives of migrant workers are in part responsible for the continuing problem.Source:http://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain?docid=45aca2a82fAccording to Human Rights Watch and other international rights advocates, the Kafala system exposes migrant workers to abuse in many forms, including exploitative working conditions, poor living accommodations, restrictions on freedom to organize or bargain collectively, and nonpayment of salaries (despite a mandatory electronic payment system in place since 2009).Sexual abuse and violence are also reported regularly, and the Philippine government has, on occasion, enforced temporary bans to prevent female workers from being deployed in certain countries, including the UAE, Jordan, and Iraq.For its part, the UAE government recognizes gaps in implementation of labor laws and other mandates but contends that organizations like Human Rights Watch often turn a blind eye to past efforts and current policy developments to better protect migrant workers from abusive labor practices.Source: Labor Migration in the United Arab Emirates: Challenges and ResponsesIt is illegal in UAE, like elsewhere in the world, to retain worker's identity documents.But the Kafala system in UAE, allows (See O.P., I used the word you used) employers confiscate passports and report “absconding” workers to authorities to avoid punishment themselves [2].According to a Human Rights Watch report [3] several major construction firms are known to have an unwritten policy of not hiring workers who refuse to give up their passports, and in some documented cases even make money by charging fees to return passports.Let's turn the gaze to football. umm.....to Qatar.More than 500 Indian migrant workers have died in Qatar since January 2012, revealing for the first time the shocking scale of death toll among those building the infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup.The figures from the Indian embassy show that 233 Indian migrants died in 2010 and 239 in 2011, taking the total over four years to 974. Since the World Cup was awarded to Qatar in December 2010, there have been 717 recorded Indian deaths.the lists of dead Nepalese workers showed that more than two-thirds died of sudden heart failure or workplace accidents.Source: More than 500 Indian workers have died in Qatar since 2012, figures showDeath. Let's look into them even more.The most frequent cause of death among immigrant housemaids in GCC Member States is “falling down from high floors” according to an attorney investigating worker grievances. Some of these women may have been driven to suicide by their horrid circumstances, but many probably were murdered. There is no respect for their lives.And what is the legal system there? Awesome, I must say. The legal system goes in the direction of opposite 180 degrees from human rights as the latter is known in most countries of the world.In 2008, in the United Arab Emirates, a woman who was gang-raped by a group of men was imprisoned for eight months for adultery after reporting the crime to the police.Source: The Exploitation of Immigrant Workers in the Middle EastThere are many stories of human rights violations like these. If you need more, let me know.Please let me know anyone who was thankful to the Muslim people of the Middle-East for this.Labour ComplaintsIn the GCC, construction workers risk severe exhaustion from lifting or carrying heavy materials in the heat for many hours. Over 30 percent of workers spend 50hours or more per week on the job. They work seven days per week, often continuously for weeks or months without days off [4] Please note that in the GCC, much alike rest of the world, labor laws call for a maximum of eight working hours per day, up to 48 hours per week, but of course they are shown the middle finger.The survey showed that salary, position, age, country of origin and country of work all make little difference to this statistic. Work hours in the GCC are long for everyone.According to other survey results, the average salary of a ‘white-collar’ construction worker in the Gulf was more than $6,000 per month but Indian professionals - who made up 31 percent of the respondents - earned nearly $2,000 lessSource: 38% construction execs work more than 50 hoursOverall, this is what migrant workers go through as a recent investigation reveals:Companies are withholding the passports of migrant workers, trapping them in the UAE.■ Thousands of workers are living in substandard or squalid conditions elsewhere in the UAE in apparent breach of the TDIC's pledge to house them all in its model Saadiyat accommodation village.■ Dozens of workers were deported this year for striking over pay and conditions.■ Workers decorating the university live in squalid conditions, with 10 men to a room, no free healthcare and some trapped because they have to pay back huge recruitment fees.■ Mobile-phone video footage of a riot at the SAV in August shows dozens of men roaming the camp armed with metal spears and planks spiked with nails. Men are seen jumping out of windows to avoid the conflict.■ A worker who claims he lost his leg while building luxury villas has been forced to live on the top floor of a migrant camp for a year. He only received a prosthetic leg last month and has been reliant on the Red Crescent for medical support. His claim for compensation and request for ground-floor accommodation have been rejected.■ Louvre workers are having to work for nine months to a year just to pay back their recruitment fees. One worker who went on strike over poor wages was kept in his camp unpaid for three months and then sent back to Pakistan with 19 others.Source: Conditions for Abu Dhabi's migrant workers 'shame the west'Look into more working conditions here: Dark side of the Dubai dream​​Human Trafficking and Sexual ExploitationAccording to the US State Department, human trafficking to the UAE is an endemic problem. Large numbers of young boys are annually trafficked to the UAE to be trained as camel jockeys, and in 2005 the UAE government estimated the number of children working as camel jockeys to be between 1,200 and 2,700; international organizations have put the numbers at 5,000-6,000. Responding to international criticism, UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan decreed in July 2005 that all camel jockeys must be age 18 or older.Source: http://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain?docid=45aca2a82fHah. Good to seee the khalifa minister man got some common sense.Why do they need young boys as camel jockies?The owners preferred young children as jockeys because they believed their screams made the camels run faster.According to children's rights campaigners, many of the boys fell while racing at high speeds and suffered serious injuries and even permanent disabilities. Some were trampled to death by other camels after falling off their mounts.Source: Former camel jockeys compensated by UAE Camel jockeys are subject not only to mental and physical disorders shared with other migrant workers, but also to abuses unique to the sport. To keep the children’s weight low, trainers deprive them of food and give them salty water to drink, which increases diarrhea. They are forced to run in the desert heat carrying weights to lose any weight they might gain.One rider told investigative reporters that he had personally seen 20 children killed and numerous others severely injured during races: There was this one kid whose strap broke at the beginning of the race…his head was crushed between the legs of the running camel…once the race has started it cannot stop.Source: Human rights and health disparities for migrant workers in the UAEMore stories on Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation here:1) UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Selling immigrants into sex slavery 2) Why Dubai's Islamic austerity is a sham – sex is for sale in every bar3) IV. Tier PlacementsI didn't even touch on lack of freedom of expression, lack of legal protection and so on, on the migrant workers from India to the GCC. I didn't even touch on so many issues these migrant workers face, and they don't even have a voice.The question is: Why do Indian migrant workers still go to these countries to work?The answer is easy, silly.Poverty.Just because you don't get it, just because you don't feel it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist for others or that it doesn't make them take so much risks in life, just to survive.Be thankful you are in a privileged position to ask this question on Quora as an exercise of academic curiosity (I'll assume this one). I'm thankful to my privileged position, just in case you're wondering.And religion does zilch to help others.Capitalism just provides jobs.And these middle-eastern employers should be grateful that they get employees to work for them while they suck on to their blood.Sources:[1] https://www.lafollette.wisc.edu/images/publications/workshops/2014-migration.pdf[2] A. Gardner, City of strangers: Gulf migration and the Indian community in Bahrain (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010); N. Pearce,Migrant workers’ rights: The passport issue (London, UK: Kalayaan, 2003)[3] Building Towers, Cheating Workers[4] 38% construction execs work more than 50 hours[ 5] Page on uncg.edu[6 ] http://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain?docid=45aca2a82f[7 ] Dark side of the Dubai dream[8 ] http://www.hhrjournal.org/2013/08/20/human-rights-and-health-disparities-for-migrant-workers-in-the-uae/

Hard to build on Ed Roggeveen’s excellent answer. Like other young charismatic politicians such as Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau, Jacinda Ardern campaigned on a platform of hope and change. During the 2017 election, Labour capitalized on the housing shortage, unsustainable rate of migration, and the growing socio-economic divide in New Zealand society. My sense is that Labour is learning that some of their promises are hard to deliver. Right now, the Labour-led government has entered a pragmatic governing phase.To be fair, Labour has delivered on several of their stated campaign promises such as:Taken steps to re-enter the Pike River mine in order to recover the miners’ bodies (much to the relief of the Pike River miners’ families)Abolishing national standards in schools (much to the pleasure of the Teachers’ Union)Made the first year of university education free (much to the pleasure of the tertiary students’ unions and education advocates)Reducing net migration by 20–30,000. This has led to the tightening of immigration, work, and student visa requirements.Created a Tax Working Group to examine the country’s taxation policeisCancelled the previous National Government’s tax cutsHolding an inquiry into the NZSAS’s Operation Burnham which saw the killing of Afghan civilians in 2010[1]Still, there are areas where Jacinda’s Labour-led government has fallen short.As Ed Roggeveen has pointed out, charter schools is a particularly fraught issue. Labour’s opposition to charter schools stems from the view that they would undercut a public schooling system. The teachers’ unions have been the main driving force behind Labour’s opposition to charter schools. To be fair to charter schools, several of them have helped disadvantaged children particularly in the Maori and Pacific communities. It would be impossible to close down the charter schools. The best compromise would be to convert them to special characters schools similar to the Catholic state aid schools.[2]Her government has been hit by a number of media scandals in the past few months. The first one was the Labour youth camp saga in February where alcohol was freely available to teenagers and a drunken 20-year old man indecently assaulted four teenagers. To be fair to Jacinda, this is not her fault. The camp managers and Labour Party Secretary Andrew Kirton neglected to inform the Prime Minister. What grated the public was that the Labour Party authorities in charge of the camp took a “victim-centric” approach and did not inform the teenagers’ parents.[3] Common sense would have dictated reporting the man to the Police and informing the teenagers’ parents. Jacinda should have demanded the resignation of the Andrew Kirton and the camp managers.The recent Radio NZ fiasco involving broadcasting minister Claire Curran and RNZ broadcaster Carol Hirschfeld could have been easily avoided had the two been more upfront from the beginning. Since Claire was a government minister, it would have been inappropriate for Carol to have secretly met Claire without the permission of the company’s board. Carol’s undoing was claiming that the meeting was coincidental when Claire Curran’s diary showed otherwise.[4] It is sad to see Carol go since she was a popular broadcaster. Claire and Carol were discussing expanding the public broadcaster RNZ into a television broadcaster. TVNZ is owned by the New Zealand Government but 90% of their funding comes from the private sector. Labour has been a strong supporter of public broadcasting.In terms of foreign affairs, the Labour-led government’s performance has been a bit disappointing. Recently, Jacinda indicated that New Zealand would not join the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States and other Western allies in expelling Russian diplomats over the Skripal poisoning scandal in Salisbury. The official NZ Government position is that the Russian Embassy does not have spies in NZ because there were few spy targets here.[5] NZ’s soft stance on Russia stems from the Labour coalition partner NZ First’s sponsorship of free trade talks with Russia. To be fair to Jacinda, these talks have since been suspended due to the Skripal scandal. [6] From the government’s perspective, they were trying to balance NZ’s economic interests with maintain solidarity with Western allies. Most of the evidence points to Russia having a hand in the Skripal scandal.Despite these shortcomings, Labour has been pragmatic enough not to pursue radical policies such as introducing a capital gains tax or taxing farmers. Labour has also reversed their policy on withdrawing from the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement. Under Jacinda, the Labour-led government with the support of NZ First and the opposition National and ACT Party have signed the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), an amended version of the TPP. The CPTPP is not perfect but New Zealand is right in avoiding the isolationism of the Trump Administration. The US’s withdrawal from the TPP allowed the other countries to renegotiate the agreement and address issues such as sovereignty. Socialists and the Greens would always oppose such free trade agreements.Despite the ideological differences between Labour and National/ACT, these parties have also been pragmatic enough to work on issues they can agree on. Jacinda voted in favour of ACT leader David Seymour’s End of Life Choice Bill, which would legalize assisted suicide in NZ. Personally, I oppose euthanasia but I think this would be a good example of bipartisan cooperation in the NZ Parliament. There was a conscience vote with MPs being allowed to vote based on their conscience. Most Labour MPs, all NZ First and Green MPs, half of the National MPs and ACT MP Seymour voted in favour of the bill (61 in favour). Several Labour MPs (mainly members of the Maori and Pacific communities) and the other half of the National MPs voted against the bill (29 against).Personally, I like Jacinda as a person. I wish her and her partner Clarke Gayford all the best with their baby who is due in June. Still, I think it would be good for them to marry or enter into a civil union since they are currently in a de-facto relationship. While there have been some high profile media scandals, the Labour-led government has managed to deliver several of their campaign promises. The housing shortage and environmental pollution will continue to be problems for any government in power. These would takes years if not generations to solve.Footnotes[1] Defence Minister Ron Mark requests briefing on Hit & Run issues[2] Charter schools in New Zealand - Wikipedia[3] Labour camp sexual assault: Who knew what, when?[4] Broadcaster Carol Hirschfeld to resign immediately after Curran meeting saga[5] PM Jacinda Ardern: Why NZ is not expelling Russia diplomats[6] Govt steps back from Russia free trade deal following chemical attack