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Home > World Bank Woos Western Corporations to Profit From Labor of Stranded
Syrian Refugees
________________________________________
World Bank Woos Western Corporations to Profit From Labor of Stranded Syrian
Refugees
By Sarah Lazare [1] / AlterNet [2]
February 24, 2016
Under the guise of humanitarian aid, the World Bank is enticing Western
companies to launch "new investments" in Jordan in order to profit from the
labor of standed Syrian refugees. In a country where migrant workers have
faced forced servitude, torture and wage theft, there is reason to be
concerned that this capital-intensive "solution" to the mounting crisis of
displacement will establish sweatshops that specifically target war refugees
for hyper-exploitation.
The World Bank is invoking the destruction of war in justifying its
proposal. In a devastating quarterly report [3] released last month, the
World Bank described a Middle East whose economies have been ravaged by
armed conflict. The financial institution put total losses due to the "war
in Syria and spillovers to the neighboring five countries" near $35 billion
in "output," noting staggering levels of damage to physical objects and
human beings. As a result, the world is now facing the "biggest forced
displacement crisis since World War II," the report warns, determining the
immediate outlook for the region to be "cautiously pessimistic."
Amid mounting warnings of large-scale social harm, the World Bank is
pursuing its own solutions, issuing a press statement [4] just weeks after
its dire quarterly report in which it declared "support to the Middle East
and North Africa will amount to U.S. $20 billion in the next five years."
While the announcement was short on details, one specific example of this
help should raise profound concern.
"Prime Minister David Cameron, His Majesty King Abdullah of Jordan and I
began discussing, in September, how best to create jobs for both Jordanians
and Syrian refugees," said World Bank Group president Jim Yong Kim in the
release. "We are exploring the creation of special economic zones (SEZs),
and encouraging investments in municipal projects and labor-intensive work."
After numerous efforts to obtain more information from the World Bank about
the proposal, as well as interviews with workers' rights advocates in the
U.S. and Jordan, this author believes these SEZs are at risk of becoming
severe human rights violation zones. Jordan already has numerous special
economic zones under different names, and their history is mired in the
miseries associated with sweatshops: human trafficking, torture and wage
theft of migrant workers, often in the service of U.S. companies.
The world should be closely watching the World Bank's plan in Jordan, not
only because the country's Syrian refugees deserve real humanitarian
solutions, but also because the financial institution's economic model has
global implications. At a time of mass human displacement from ongoing wars,
we should be asking hard questions about the political implications of
encouraging Western companies to target and profit from the labor of people
violently uprooted from their homes.
Throwing capital investments at a humanitarian crisis
While Europe's refugee crisis is grabbing global headlines, displaced people
are most concentrated in the Middle East, with 95 percent of people
externally uprooted from Syria now residing in the nearby countries of
Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, and Egypt. In Jordan alone, Syrian refugees now
number more than 1.4 million according to some estimates-well over a tenth
of the population-in addition to more 2 million registered refugees from
Palestine, some freshly displaced from Syria, and tens of thousands of
people from Iraq.
Those forced to flee their homes live in cities and towns across the
country, as well as crowded refugee camps in the northern and eastern parts
of Jordan. Amnesty International warned [5] in December that, due to
mounting border restrictions, thousands of Syrian refugees are trapped in a
"no-man's land" on the Jordanian side of the border with Syria, subject to
"desperate, freezing" conditions. One satellite image [6] from December 8
shows nearly 1,500 makeshift shelters housing people stranded in the remote
border zone of Rukban.
A Syrian woman identified as Warde recently described [5] being trapped in
one of these border zones for a month during 2015: "We stayed in the dirt.It
was terrible.We made our own tents with our blankets-we would sew them
together.as protection against the sun and the wind."
The World Bank says its private enterprise solution will help alleviate such
hardship, but is offering little information about what exactly its SEZs
will entail. According to the institution's materials, it is in consultation
with the government of Jordan and the UK's Department for International
Development to establish five SEZs in Mafreq, Erbid, Moaqer, Karak and Maan,
many located close to the Syrian border. The International Finance
Corporation (IFC), the financing arm of the World Bank, is also involved in
the plan.
Lara Saade, a spokesperson for the World Bank, was explicit about the goal
of wooing foreign investors, telling AlterNet that "significant tax and duty
incentives for the import of raw materials and equipment are already on
offer," including a 5 percent corporate tax for sales in Jordan and 0
percent for exports. She added that a "number of bilaterals, notably the
British, are actively encouraging firms to invest," claiming that local
companies have also shown interest.
The spokesperson said that the program will focus on employing both Syrians
and Jordanians, but it was not clear in what proportion. When asked whether
there will be any mechanisms in place to protect workers' rights in these
labor-intensive zones, Saade answered: "Formal workers' rights are generally
well protected in Jordan. All refugees working in the zones will be formal
workers."
The initiative, she said, is an example of how "we are using a holistic
approach to addressing the refugee influx through private sector
development."
But Scott Nova, the executive director of the independent labor monitoring
group Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), told AlterNet he is skeptical of this
model. "The real issue is, does it make sense to try to address economic
development challenges by incentivizing countries to offer the cheapest
labor and weakest regulation to entice retailers in Europe and the U.S. to
relocate production? That is a strategy the World Bank has long been fond
of."
"The guards used to beat us up with broomsticks"
One only has to look at Jordan's numerous SEZs to evaluate whether workers'
rights are being adequately safeguarded. As a reward for normalizing the
Israeli occupation of Palestine, former president Bill Clinton oversaw the
establishment [7] of Qualifying Industrial Zones (QIZs) in 1996, enabling
Egypt and Jordan to "export products to the United States duty-free, as long
as these products contain inputs from Israel." Such status is no small
matter, as even the major textile exporting country of Bangladesh is not
granted duty-free exports to the United States. The agreement helped launch
Jordan's significant garment industry, with many QIZs eventually
transforming into large industrial parks.
The U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement (FTA), signed in 2001, expanded [8]
this liberalization by slashing barriers to bilateral trade in nearly every
single industrial and agricultural sector. According to a U.S. analysis [9]
a decade after implementation, the initial QIZs remained powerful
manufacturing centers, but thanks to the FTA, goods were being exported
beyond those zones as well.
In a damning report released in May 2006, the Institute for Global Labor and
Human Rights concluded that, just years after the deal was established, the
U.S.-Jordan FTA and the QIZ framework had descended into a nightmare of
"human trafficking and involuntary servitude." Of the estimated 48,000 QIZ
workers at the time, roughly 25,000 of them were guest workers primarily
hailing from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Indonesia and Egypt.
American companies were intimately involved in these abuses.
In a harrowing 168 pages, the report describes human trafficking, torture,
wage theft and widespread denial of the right to collectively organize. At
the Al-Shahaed Apparel and Textile factory, a supplier for Walmart and
K-Mart located in the Al-Hassan QIZ, Bangladeshi workers described having
their passports taken, held as indentured servants and forced to work
mandatory 38- to 72-hour shifts while some were paid as little as one cent
an hour.
"We were subjected to punishment when we wanted more food," testified one
worker, identified as Mr. Nasir. "The guards used to beat us up with
broomsticks. Sometimes they used to force us to stand naked in an
air-conditioned room in severe cold."
These abuses persisted despite language in the U.S-Jordan FTA that
ostensibly mandated labor protections, earning the praise [10] of
then-AFL-CIO president John Sweeney. According to all available evidence,
widespread mistreatment of workers continues to the present day.
Linda Al-Kalash, the director of the Jordanian organization Tamkeen Fields
for Aid, which combats discrimination, trafficking and human rights
violations, told AlterNet over the phone that labor protections included in
domestic laws and free trade agreements don't mean anything if they are not
enforced. "Our problem is with implementation and regulation. This problem
includes implementation from employers and from the ministry of labor."
As recently as 2013, the WRC warned [11] of severe violations at an
Al-Hassan factory that does business with the VF corporation, a U.S.-based
transnational apparel company. In one incident, "a company supervisor
directed Jordanian workers to beat four Burmese workers, all of them women,
for refusing to come to work during a strike," the WRC said.
Even the U.S. State Department admitted [12] in a 2015 report that numerous
domestic migrant workers in Jordan's garment industry continue to
"experience forced labor," with employers often granted immunity for severe
human rights abuses. As recently as last month, Jordanian government
authorities said [13] they were investigating fresh reports of human
trafficking at a garment factory in Al-Hassan.
Mervat Jumhawy, who works for a general trade union in the textile industry
in Al-Hassan, told AlterNet that migrant workers continue to face poor
conditions, including dormitories that are "not suitable for humans," and in
some cases, employers who seize their passports.
When pressed on these concerns, Saade pointed AlterNet to Better
Work-Jordan, a joint program of the International Labor Organization and
IFC, which she said had a "good track record" on protecting workers' rights.
However, Nova had a different take. "Better Work has no enforcement power,
so serious labor rights abuses often continue for years in factories covered
by the program," he said. "In Jordan, Better Work does not even publicly
disclose its findings, which might generate at least some pressure on brands
and factories to end violations."
Capital crosses borders, people shut out
"It is easy for employers to exploit Syrian refugees' rights, and it is
difficult for those refugees to file a complaint against their employer,"
said Al-Kalash, whose organization will soon publish a study based on
interviews with 250 male Syrian refugees. According to the unreleased
report, 80 percent of the men interviewed don't have labor permits, 50
percent earn well below minimum wage and 100 percent have no medical
insurance. A separate study based on Syrian women is forthcoming.
"The migrants and refugees are a vulnerable group. We need to know more
about the new investments in Jordan," Al-Kalash added, referencing the World
Bank proposal. "We need to know if the refugees will have access to justice.
We need to know about workers' rights."
Shawna Bader-Blau, the executive director of the AFL-CIO-allied Solidarity
Center, told AlterNet she agrees. "People have been displaced by war, and
they need jobs. But it is an obligation of states to not just provide jobs,
but to make sure they are good jobs."
While the World Bank is not being forthcoming about which companies or
industries will be involved in the new investments, the example of the
country's garment industry is cause for concern.
"The global garment industry does not have a good track record, especially
in special economic zones," Bader-Blau added. "And the Jordanian government
has no good track record to ensure that rights at work are protected, that
dormitories have decent conditions for workers. I'd say that any temporary
job program for migrants, either refugees from war or other migrants, is
susceptible to exploitation absent guaranteed rights to freely form a union
and collectively bargain and actively practice those rights."
Such rights are not fully guaranteed [14] in Jordan.
Jumhawy, on the other hand, said she is more concerned about the welfare of
Syrians employed outside of the SEZs. "I am much more worried about Syrian
refugees that are working in the construction and agricultural industries
than those working in the industrial zones," she said. "It is more
concerning because they are all over the place geographically and harder to
monitor."
Within the SEZs, Jumhawy believes Syrians refugees could face relative
privilege over migrant workers from South Asia or Asia, and even potentially
contribute to the latter's displacement.
Any divisions between war refugees and economic migrants, as well as
ordinary Jordanians, must be avoided at all costs, Al-Kalash cautioned,
emphasizing that the aim is to "protect everyone's rights."
The World Bank has given no meaningful public indication that it will heed
Al-Kalash's call. Meanwhile, from Haiti [15] to Honduras [16] to Gaza [17],
there is no shortage of examples in which such free trade solutions to
human-made crises descend into humanitarian disasters. The Canadian author
and activist Naomi Klein coined the term "disaster capitalism" to denote the
economic policies embraced by the World Bank and other global bodies, states
and corporations, in which human rights crises serve as a pretext to clear
the way for a ruthless race to the bottom for all but the ultra-wealthy.
But the World Bank program also raises deeper questions about the global
responsibility to address the large-scale human harm the West played a role
in unleashing. Human rights organizations, social movements and large
numbers of refugees are calling on the United States and Europe to open
their borders and welcome the ever-growing numbers of displaced people. So
far those voices have met fierce resistance from states, with the U.S.
welcoming in less than 2,000 Syrian refugees and countries across the
European Union slamming their borders shut. Unlike people, weapons and
capital easily traverse borders.
Myriam Francois, a journalist and research associate at SOAS, University of
London, told AlterNet that the SEZ proposals are "less about Syrian needs
and more about keeping Syrian refugees out of Europe by creating (barely)
sustainable conditions within the camps which would then make claims to
asylum much harder to recognize." What's more, she added that "these zones
will change refugee camps from emergency and temporary responses to a
crisis, to much more permanent settlements."
Will these capital-intensive solutions be more tools for the powerful
countries running the World Bank to contain the refugee crisis from afar and
wash their hands of their fundamental duty to address the harm they have
done throughout the region? And which companies are angling to turn a profit
from those forced to flee large-scale destruction in Syria?
Sarah Lazare is a staff writer for AlterNet. A former staff writer for
Common Dreams, Sarah co-edited the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn
Against War. Follow her on Twitter at @sarahlazare [18].
Share on Facebook Share
Share on Twitter Tweet
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [19]
[20]
________________________________________
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/labor/world-bank-woos-western-corporations-profit-la
bor-stranded-syrian-refugees
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/sarah-lazare-0
[2] http://alternet.org
[3]
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2016/
02/10/090224b0841636e1/3_0/Rendered/PDF/The0economic0effects0of0war0and0peac
e.pdf
[4]
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2016/02/04/world-bank-preside
nt-support-middle-east-north-africa-20-billion-five-years
[5]
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/12/jordan-risk-of-humanitarian-d
isaster-as-12000-refugees-from-syria-stranded-in-no-mans-land/
[6]
https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/12/08/jordan-syrians-held-desert-face-crisis
[7]
http://web.ita.doc.gov/tacgi/fta.nsf/7a9d3143265673ee85257a0700667a6f/196ed7
9f4f79ac0085257a070066961d
[8]
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010928-12
.html
[9] https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/jordan-fta
[10]
http://www.aflcio.org/Press-Room/Press-Releases/Statement-by-AFL-CIO-Preside
nt-John-Sweeney-On-Chi2
[11] http://www.workersrights.org/university/memo/032713.html
[12] http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/countries/2015/243464.htm
[13]
http://tamkeen-jo.org/authorities-investigating-alleged-human-trafficking-of
-some-100-labourers-in-irbid-factory-see-more-at-httpwww-jordantimes-comnews
localauthorities-investigating-alleged-human-trafficking-some/
[14]
http://www.solidaritycenter.org/where-we-work/middle-east-north-africa/jorda
n/
[15]
http://cepr.net/blogs/haiti-relief-and-reconstruction-watch/haitis-apparel-f
actories-reports-find-wage-theft-sexual-harassment-and-poor-safety-and-sanit
ation-standards
[16]
http://cepr.net/blogs/the-americas-blog/will-the-eu-and-idb-fund-human-right
s-free-zones-in-honduras?highlight=WyJ6ZWRlIl0=
[17]
http://www.alternet.org/world/international-community-promises-rebuild-gaza-
sweat-shops-exploit-palestinian-workers
[18] https://twitter.com/sarahlazare
[19] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on World Bank Woos Western
Corporations to Profit From Labor of Stranded Syrian Refugees
[20] http://www.alternet.org/
[21] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > World Bank Woos Western Corporations to Profit From Labor of Stranded
Syrian Refugees
World Bank Woos Western Corporations to Profit From Labor of Stranded Syrian
Refugees
By Sarah Lazare [1] / AlterNet [2]
February 24, 2016
Under the guise of humanitarian aid, the World Bank is enticing Western
companies to launch "new investments" in Jordan in order to profit from the
labor of standed Syrian refugees. In a country where migrant workers have
faced forced servitude, torture and wage theft, there is reason to be
concerned that this capital-intensive "solution" to the mounting crisis of
displacement will establish sweatshops that specifically target war refugees
for hyper-exploitation.
The World Bank is invoking the destruction of war in justifying its
proposal. In a devastating quarterly report [3] released last month, the
World Bank described a Middle East whose economies have been ravaged by
armed conflict. The financial institution put total losses due to the "war
in Syria and spillovers to the neighboring five countries" near $35 billion
in "output," noting staggering levels of damage to physical objects and
human beings. As a result, the world is now facing the "biggest forced
displacement crisis since World War II," the report warns, determining the
immediate outlook for the region to be "cautiously pessimistic."
Amid mounting warnings of large-scale social harm, the World Bank is
pursuing its own solutions, issuing a press statement [4] just weeks after
its dire quarterly report in which it declared "support to the Middle East
and North Africa will amount to U.S. $20 billion in the next five years."
While the announcement was short on details, one specific example of this
help should raise profound concern.
"Prime Minister David Cameron, His Majesty King Abdullah of Jordan and I
began discussing, in September, how best to create jobs for both Jordanians
and Syrian refugees," said World Bank Group president Jim Yong Kim in the
release. "We are exploring the creation of special economic zones (SEZs),
and encouraging investments in municipal projects and labor-intensive work."
After numerous efforts to obtain more information from the World Bank about
the proposal, as well as interviews with workers' rights advocates in the
U.S. and Jordan, this author believes these SEZs are at risk of becoming
severe human rights violation zones. Jordan already has numerous special
economic zones under different names, and their history is mired in the
miseries associated with sweatshops: human trafficking, torture and wage
theft of migrant workers, often in the service of U.S. companies.
The world should be closely watching the World Bank's plan in Jordan, not
only because the country's Syrian refugees deserve real humanitarian
solutions, but also because the financial institution's economic model has
global implications. At a time of mass human displacement from ongoing wars,
we should be asking hard questions about the political implications of
encouraging Western companies to target and profit from the labor of people
violently uprooted from their homes.
Throwing capital investments at a humanitarian crisis
While Europe's refugee crisis is grabbing global headlines, displaced people
are most concentrated in the Middle East, with 95 percent of people
externally uprooted from Syria now residing in the nearby countries of
Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, and Egypt. In Jordan alone, Syrian refugees now
number more than 1.4 million according to some estimates-well over a tenth
of the population-in addition to more 2 million registered refugees from
Palestine, some freshly displaced from Syria, and tens of thousands of
people from Iraq.
Those forced to flee their homes live in cities and towns across the
country, as well as crowded refugee camps in the northern and eastern parts
of Jordan. Amnesty International warned [5] in December that, due to
mounting border restrictions, thousands of Syrian refugees are trapped in a
"no-man's land" on the Jordanian side of the border with Syria, subject to
"desperate, freezing" conditions. One satellite image [6] from December 8
shows nearly 1,500 makeshift shelters housing people stranded in the remote
border zone of Rukban.
A Syrian woman identified as Warde recently described [5] being trapped in
one of these border zones for a month during 2015: "We stayed in the dirt.It
was terrible.We made our own tents with our blankets-we would sew them
together.as protection against the sun and the wind."
The World Bank says its private enterprise solution will help alleviate such
hardship, but is offering little information about what exactly its SEZs
will entail. According to the institution's materials, it is in consultation
with the government of Jordan and the UK's Department for International
Development to establish five SEZs in Mafreq, Erbid, Moaqer, Karak and Maan,
many located close to the Syrian border. The International Finance
Corporation (IFC), the financing arm of the World Bank, is also involved in
the plan.
Lara Saade, a spokesperson for the World Bank, was explicit about the goal
of wooing foreign investors, telling AlterNet that "significant tax and duty
incentives for the import of raw materials and equipment are already on
offer," including a 5 percent corporate tax for sales in Jordan and 0
percent for exports. She added that a "number of bilaterals, notably the
British, are actively encouraging firms to invest," claiming that local
companies have also shown interest.
The spokesperson said that the program will focus on employing both Syrians
and Jordanians, but it was not clear in what proportion. When asked whether
there will be any mechanisms in place to protect workers' rights in these
labor-intensive zones, Saade answered: "Formal workers' rights are generally
well protected in Jordan. All refugees working in the zones will be formal
workers."
The initiative, she said, is an example of how "we are using a holistic
approach to addressing the refugee influx through private sector
development."
But Scott Nova, the executive director of the independent labor monitoring
group Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), told AlterNet he is skeptical of this
model. "The real issue is, does it make sense to try to address economic
development challenges by incentivizing countries to offer the cheapest
labor and weakest regulation to entice retailers in Europe and the U.S. to
relocate production? That is a strategy the World Bank has long been fond
of."
"The guards used to beat us up with broomsticks"
One only has to look at Jordan's numerous SEZs to evaluate whether workers'
rights are being adequately safeguarded. As a reward for normalizing the
Israeli occupation of Palestine, former president Bill Clinton oversaw the
establishment [7] of Qualifying Industrial Zones (QIZs) in 1996, enabling
Egypt and Jordan to "export products to the United States duty-free, as long
as these products contain inputs from Israel." Such status is no small
matter, as even the major textile exporting country of Bangladesh is not
granted duty-free exports to the United States. The agreement helped launch
Jordan's significant garment industry, with many QIZs eventually
transforming into large industrial parks.
The U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement (FTA), signed in 2001, expanded [8]
this liberalization by slashing barriers to bilateral trade in nearly every
single industrial and agricultural sector. According to a U.S. analysis [9]
a decade after implementation, the initial QIZs remained powerful
manufacturing centers, but thanks to the FTA, goods were being exported
beyond those zones as well.
In a damning report released in May 2006, the Institute for Global Labor and
Human Rights concluded that, just years after the deal was established, the
U.S.-Jordan FTA and the QIZ framework had descended into a nightmare of
"human trafficking and involuntary servitude." Of the estimated 48,000 QIZ
workers at the time, roughly 25,000 of them were guest workers primarily
hailing from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Indonesia and Egypt.
American companies were intimately involved in these abuses.
In a harrowing 168 pages, the report describes human trafficking, torture,
wage theft and widespread denial of the right to collectively organize. At
the Al-Shahaed Apparel and Textile factory, a supplier for Walmart and
K-Mart located in the Al-Hassan QIZ, Bangladeshi workers described having
their passports taken, held as indentured servants and forced to work
mandatory 38- to 72-hour shifts while some were paid as little as one cent
an hour.
"We were subjected to punishment when we wanted more food," testified one
worker, identified as Mr. Nasir. "The guards used to beat us up with
broomsticks. Sometimes they used to force us to stand naked in an
air-conditioned room in severe cold."
These abuses persisted despite language in the U.S-Jordan FTA that
ostensibly mandated labor protections, earning the praise [10] of
then-AFL-CIO president John Sweeney. According to all available evidence,
widespread mistreatment of workers continues to the present day.
Linda Al-Kalash, the director of the Jordanian organization Tamkeen Fields
for Aid, which combats discrimination, trafficking and human rights
violations, told AlterNet over the phone that labor protections included in
domestic laws and free trade agreements don't mean anything if they are not
enforced. "Our problem is with implementation and regulation. This problem
includes implementation from employers and from the ministry of labor."
As recently as 2013, the WRC warned [11] of severe violations at an
Al-Hassan factory that does business with the VF corporation, a U.S.-based
transnational apparel company. In one incident, "a company supervisor
directed Jordanian workers to beat four Burmese workers, all of them women,
for refusing to come to work during a strike," the WRC said.
Even the U.S. State Department admitted [12] in a 2015 report that numerous
domestic migrant workers in Jordan's garment industry continue to
"experience forced labor," with employers often granted immunity for severe
human rights abuses. As recently as last month, Jordanian government
authorities said [13] they were investigating fresh reports of human
trafficking at a garment factory in Al-Hassan.
Mervat Jumhawy, who works for a general trade union in the textile industry
in Al-Hassan, told AlterNet that migrant workers continue to face poor
conditions, including dormitories that are "not suitable for humans," and in
some cases, employers who seize their passports.
When pressed on these concerns, Saade pointed AlterNet to Better
Work-Jordan, a joint program of the International Labor Organization and
IFC, which she said had a "good track record" on protecting workers' rights.
However, Nova had a different take. "Better Work has no enforcement power,
so serious labor rights abuses often continue for years in factories covered
by the program," he said. "In Jordan, Better Work does not even publicly
disclose its findings, which might generate at least some pressure on brands
and factories to end violations."
Capital crosses borders, people shut out
"It is easy for employers to exploit Syrian refugees' rights, and it is
difficult for those refugees to file a complaint against their employer,"
said Al-Kalash, whose organization will soon publish a study based on
interviews with 250 male Syrian refugees. According to the unreleased
report, 80 percent of the men interviewed don't have labor permits, 50
percent earn well below minimum wage and 100 percent have no medical
insurance. A separate study based on Syrian women is forthcoming.
"The migrants and refugees are a vulnerable group. We need to know more
about the new investments in Jordan," Al-Kalash added, referencing the World
Bank proposal. "We need to know if the refugees will have access to justice.
We need to know about workers' rights."
Shawna Bader-Blau, the executive director of the AFL-CIO-allied Solidarity
Center, told AlterNet she agrees. "People have been displaced by war, and
they need jobs. But it is an obligation of states to not just provide jobs,
but to make sure they are good jobs."
While the World Bank is not being forthcoming about which companies or
industries will be involved in the new investments, the example of the
country's garment industry is cause for concern.
"The global garment industry does not have a good track record, especially
in special economic zones," Bader-Blau added. "And the Jordanian government
has no good track record to ensure that rights at work are protected, that
dormitories have decent conditions for workers. I'd say that any temporary
job program for migrants, either refugees from war or other migrants, is
susceptible to exploitation absent guaranteed rights to freely form a union
and collectively bargain and actively practice those rights."
Such rights are not fully guaranteed [14] in Jordan.
Jumhawy, on the other hand, said she is more concerned about the welfare of
Syrians employed outside of the SEZs. "I am much more worried about Syrian
refugees that are working in the construction and agricultural industries
than those working in the industrial zones," she said. "It is more
concerning because they are all over the place geographically and harder to
monitor."
Within the SEZs, Jumhawy believes Syrians refugees could face relative
privilege over migrant workers from South Asia or Asia, and even potentially
contribute to the latter's displacement.
Any divisions between war refugees and economic migrants, as well as
ordinary Jordanians, must be avoided at all costs, Al-Kalash cautioned,
emphasizing that the aim is to "protect everyone's rights."
The World Bank has given no meaningful public indication that it will heed
Al-Kalash's call. Meanwhile, from Haiti [15] to Honduras [16] to Gaza [17],
there is no shortage of examples in which such free trade solutions to
human-made crises descend into humanitarian disasters. The Canadian author
and activist Naomi Klein coined the term "disaster capitalism" to denote the
economic policies embraced by the World Bank and other global bodies, states
and corporations, in which human rights crises serve as a pretext to clear
the way for a ruthless race to the bottom for all but the ultra-wealthy.
But the World Bank program also raises deeper questions about the global
responsibility to address the large-scale human harm the West played a role
in unleashing. Human rights organizations, social movements and large
numbers of refugees are calling on the United States and Europe to open
their borders and welcome the ever-growing numbers of displaced people. So
far those voices have met fierce resistance from states, with the U.S.
welcoming in less than 2,000 Syrian refugees and countries across the
European Union slamming their borders shut. Unlike people, weapons and
capital easily traverse borders.
Myriam Francois, a journalist and research associate at SOAS, University of
London, told AlterNet that the SEZ proposals are "less about Syrian needs
and more about keeping Syrian refugees out of Europe by creating (barely)
sustainable conditions within the camps which would then make claims to
asylum much harder to recognize." What's more, she added that "these zones
will change refugee camps from emergency and temporary responses to a
crisis, to much more permanent settlements."
Will these capital-intensive solutions be more tools for the powerful
countries running the World Bank to contain the refugee crisis from afar and
wash their hands of their fundamental duty to address the harm they have
done throughout the region? And which companies are angling to turn a profit
from those forced to flee large-scale destruction in Syria?
Sarah Lazare is a staff writer for AlterNet. A former staff writer for
Common Dreams, Sarah co-edited the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn
Against War. Follow her on Twitter at @sarahlazare [18].
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [19]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[20]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/labor/world-bank-woos-western-corporations-profit-la
bor-stranded-syrian-refugees
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/sarah-lazare-0
[2] http://alternet.org
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[4]
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nt-support-middle-east-north-africa-20-billion-five-years
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isaster-as-12000-refugees-from-syria-stranded-in-no-mans-land/
[6]
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[7]
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[9] https://ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/jordan-fta
[10]
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[11] http://www.workersrights.org/university/memo/032713.html
[12] http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/countries/2015/243464.htm
[13]
http://tamkeen-jo.org/authorities-investigating-alleged-human-trafficking-of
-some-100-labourers-in-irbid-factory-see-more-at-httpwww-jordantimes-comnews
localauthorities-investigating-alleged-human-trafficking-some/
[14]
http://www.solidaritycenter.org/where-we-work/middle-east-north-africa/jorda
n/
[15]
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actories-reports-find-wage-theft-sexual-harassment-and-poor-safety-and-sanit
ation-standards
[16]
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s-free-zones-in-honduras?highlight=WyJ6ZWRlIl0=
[17]
http://www.alternet.org/world/international-community-promises-rebuild-gaza-
sweat-shops-exploit-palestinian-workers
[18] https://twitter.com/sarahlazare
[19] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on World Bank Woos Western
Corporations to Profit From Labor of Stranded Syrian Refugees
[20] http://www.alternet.org/
[21] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
