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.”…