HRW Says Worker Abuse at Louvre, Guggenheim Site in UAE

Human Rights Watch urged the Louvre and Guggenheim museums Tuesday to pressure the United Arab Emirates to end worker abuse on a project that will host branches of the institutions.

Some employees at the Saadiyat Island site in Abu Dhabi, which will also be home to a campus of New York University, are withholding wages, confiscating workers' passports, and housing them in substandard accommodation, HRW said.

Several hundred workers who went on strike at the site were arbitrarily deported, the New York-based rights group said.

HRW said that while only "a small percentage" of the workers were subjected to abuse, the prestigious foreign institutions should demand commitments by the UAE to protect workers and to compensate them for mistreatment.

It said the persistent problems were despite new codes of conduct regulating contractors involved in the project.

"NYU, the Louvre, and the Guggenheim should surely understand by now that they can't blindly accept the UAE authorities' assurances that workers' rights are being respected," said HRW's Sarah Leah Whitson.

"They need to exert their influence much more forcefully and demand much more in return for their presence on Saadiyat Island."