This is a story about sweatshops in Jordan, and the mistreatment of Bangladeshis in them. That makes it another example of the contempt with which Arab Muslims often regard non-Arab Muslims. In this Jordan is taking a page from Saudi Arabia, from which stories regularly emerge of non-Arab foreign workers, including Muslims, being subjected to beatings and slave labor conditions.
But there is more to this story as well. Why are these Jordanian sweatshops employing people from Bangladesh when there is a large number of unemployed Palestinians on their doorstep?
Because to employ those Palestinians, you see, would prevent them from carrying out their primary task: jihad against Israel. Better to keep them unemployed and "hopeless" rather give them gainful employment and thereby take away from time they could spend on the jihad.
"An Ugly Side of Free Trade: Sweatshops in Jordan," from the New Duranty Times, aka the New York Times:
Propelled by a free trade agreement with the United States, apparel manufacturing is booming in Jordan, its exports to America soaring twentyfold in the last five years.But some foreign workers in Jordanian factories that produce garments for Target, Wal-Mart and other American retailers are complaining of dismal conditions — of 20-hour days, of not being paid for months and of being hit by supervisors and jailed when they complain.
An advocacy group for workers contends that some apparel makers in Jordan, and some contractors that supply foreign workers to them, have engaged in human trafficking. Workers from Bangladesh said they paid $1,000 to $3,000 to work in Jordan, but when they arrived, their passports were confiscated, restricting their ability to leave and tying them to jobs that often pay far less than promised and far less than the country's minimum wage.
"We used to start at 8 in the morning, and we'd work until midnight, 1 or 2 a.m., seven days a week," said Nargis Akhter, a 25-year-old Bangladeshi who, in a phone interview from Bangladesh, said she worked last year for the Paramount Garment factory outside Amman. "When we were in Bangladesh they promised us we would receive $120 a month, but in the five months I was there I only got one month's salary — and that was just $50."...
Good place to open a detergent sweatshop (factory). Proctor and Jihad.
Better all those Bangladeshi's go to Jordan and work in sweatshops, rather than sneak into India and tell people in a thick East Pakistani accent that they are from Murshidabad (in Left Bengal).
My apologies to any Israelis for not wishing that Bangladeshis stop going to Jordan.
Does anyone know the names of apparel made in Jordan? I for one, will not buy anything made there.
As far as the Pali's not wanting to work, let them starve.
One thing for sure, their only livelyhood is jihad.
This is another reason to not send aid to them. Humanitarian or jizya.
"palestinean" gangstas, oops, I mean "security personnel' are employed already, by one of the various juntas that masquerades as a government. They just aren't getting paid at the moment, other than what they can steal from each other, that is.
First, read the entire article.
Then, if you are an American citizen, call up your Senator and Congressman, and demand that the enormous favor done to Jordan's textile industry, in the mistaken belief that such economic favors would encourage "moderation" (though public opinion polls in Jordan show that 98% of the population is willing to declare that it "hates" America and Americans), merely encourages the slave trade. For if workers are worked 20-hours-a-day, fed a glass of weak tea for breakfast and rotten chicken for supper, and paid almost nothing or not paid at all, and never allowed to utter a word, and then at the end booted back to Bangladesh, after months of such forced labor -- that is slavery. And the American government should not be encouraging slavery anywhere where it currently exists (which happens to be in the Muslim, mainly Arab Muslim, countries not in the Sudan, not in Mauritania, not in Pakistan (those child laborers, many of them Christian), nor in Jordan.
So call right now. Demand an end to the Most Favorable Status for Jordan. American taxpayers do not wish to subsidize this kind of thing. And we expect our Representatives to unhesitatingly carry out our wishes on this matter.
Besides, don't those Arabs need work? Especially some of that excess population in Gaza and the West Bank? Why can't they learn a trade, and if necessary, learn it from fellow Arabs, in Jordan?
freewoman said
I'm with you. I check the "Made in..." label very closely these days. There are certain places to which I don't want a single penny of mine going.
Don't just look at the label, and avoid "Made in Jordan" or "Made in (Muslim country of your choice)." No, tell the store that you have lost your enthusiasm for patronizing the store, period, because of the exploitation of workers, and hand him a copy of the story published today about the Bangladeshi slaves in Jordan. Or mail it in, to the president of TJX Corporation, CostCo, Wal-Mart, and many others. Perhaps a little picketing at a store here and there, and then that picketing being reported in the press, would help.
No sense in American taxpayers filling the coffers of either the
Arab slavers of Jordan or,ultimately, providing still more Infidel wealth for King Abdullah and his "Palestinain" wife who is the sinister Lady Macbeth of the couple, or for ex-Queen (Act of Faith) Noor, with her well-paid abrahamic-faiths routine.
I just checked my newest blouses, and none say where they were made. One was bought at Target. Maybe this is WHY they don't say where they were made.
The situation in some of these sub-contracting factories is pure and simple unpaid slavery. Its curious that Bangladesh has had to ban its women going to work as maids in the Gulf States because, there, male employers were treating them the way Mohammed said was lawful with women possessed by your right hand i.e. using them as sex slaves. I suppose that what all these victims have in common, is while they are usually Muslims, they are not Arabs.
"what all these victims have in common, is while they are usually Muslims, they are not Arabs."
-- from a posting above
Slavery in all but name. They are lured to Jordan (often paying their life savings to do so), forced to work under horrifying conditions, and often booted out without any pay whatsoever. They were enslaved for 4, 6, 10 months. They were slaves. Involuntary servitude. The Bangladeshi government is too afraid to protest; it needs Arab dollars from the male Bangladeshis still working in the Gulf and does not dare make waves. The Arabs have always been contemptuous of non-Arab Muslims: the treatment of the Kurds, the Berbers, the blacks in Darfur, and now the B Banlgadeshi slaves in those factories that are taking full advantage of the special status foolishly allowed Jordanian goods -- a special status that is now rewarding Jordanian slave-owners, and the ruling elite that feeds off them, and no one else. Not Jordanian workers, because few Jordanians have a work ethic (the Bangladeshis, or enough of them, do, for apparently they are not quite so completely defined by Islam, and therefore not quite so completely surrounded by inshallah-fatalism).
freewoman said, "I just checked my newest blouses, and none say where they were made. One was bought at Target. Maybe this is WHY they don't say where they were made."
US customs REQUIRES that the "country of manufacture" label must be attached to every garment, any item, imported into the country. All shipments coming in go through customs to get custom clearance, and are SUPPOSED to checked.
Free, my clothes ducked customs. I think years ago it was found that Kathie Lee Giffords line of clothes was made in sweatshops and when she found out, she changed mfgs.
I just wonder what name brands ARE made from over there.
I agree with Hugh about cancelling the Jordanian tax breaks for the USA, and for the reasons that he gives. What I propose that the condition of the foreign workers in the Arab countries, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, the UAE [incl. Dubai], Qatar, etc., be the subject of a sociological study to be financed by a non-profit institute or foundation, and then released to the media with a lot of publicity. This is a story crying to be told, whether the sweatshops in Jordan, the boy camel jockeys in Dubai, housemaids in Kuwait, etc. Isn't curious that neither the so-called Left nor the main stream "liberal" media have been interested in the story of foreign workers in Arab states, although it is not a new phenomenon? This is precisely the kind of issue that should be thrown up to the so-called Left. Why is the "left" covering up for these exploiters of labor, when the Left used to mean defense of workers, the poor, the peasants, blah blah blah? This issue should also be brought up to the American labor unions. Why aren't they making noise about products sold in America, produced by slave labor, whether in Pakistan, Bangladesh itself or Jordan?
I do not know if this will be read.My apologies to all concerned about slave labour working under adverse conditions.But Bangladeshis should be of no concern to us.Bangladesh was made by muslims from the Indian state of East Bengal in the year 1947.Nowadays it is a radical muslim country which also houses al qaeda.Recently the U.S. and India set up a working group to study the implications of Bangladesh terrorist camps.They are vermin of the first order.The last violent act I heard from them was this.An elephant went too near a city in Bangladesh and was walking,not running amok.What do you think happened?Half the townfolk gathered and chased it,threw acid on it,and stuck rods in its eyes so it went blind,beated it unmercifully.The elephant finally shook them off.I do not think it would have survived in the jungle after this.Such incidents and incidents of killing of minority groups like Hindus regularly happen.They are completely islamisized and it is better they hang out in Jordan.They have earned all that is coming to them and more.