UAE
The United Arab Emirates’ intolerance of criticism continued in 2018 as authorities in May sentenced Ahmed Mansoor, an Emirati award-winning human rights activist, to a 10-year prison sentence for exercising his right to free expression. The government continues to arbitrarily detain and forcibly disappear individuals who criticize authorities.
The UAE maintains their leading role in the Saudi-led military coalition, which has conducted scores of unlawful attacks in Yemen. The UAE was implicated in detainee abuse at home and abroad.
Labor abuses persist. Migrant construction workers face serious exploitation. The UAE introduced a domestic workers law providing them labor rights for the first time in September 2017, but some provisions are weaker than those provided to other workers under the labor law.
The UAE continued to block representatives of international human rights organizations from visiting.
UAE authorities have launched a sustained assault on freedom of expression and association since 2011. The UAE arbitrarily detains and forcibly disappears individuals who criticize the authorities within the UAE’s borders. UAE residents who have spoken about human rights issues are at serious risk of arbitrary detention, imprisonment, and torture. Many are serving long prison terms or have left the country under pressure.
Foreign nationals account for more than 88.5 percent of the UAE’s population, according to 2011 government statistics. Many low-paid migrant workers remain acutely vulnerable to forced labor, despite some reforms.
The kafala (visa-sponsorship) system continues to tie migrant workers to their employers. Those who leave their employers can face punishment for “absconding,” including fines, prison, and deportation.
The UAE’s labor law excludes domestic workers, who face a range of abuses, from unpaid wages, confinement to the house, workdays up to 21 hours with no breaks, to physical or sexual assault by employers, from its protections. Domestic workers face legal and practical obstacles to redress.
Federal Law No. 28 of 2005 regulates personal status matters. Some of its provisions discriminate against women. For a woman to marry, her male guardian must conclude her marriage contract; men have the right to unilaterally divorce their wives, whereas a woman must apply for a court order to obtain a divorce; a woman can lose her right to maintenance if, for example, she refuses to have sexual relations with her husband without a lawful excuse; and women are required to “obey” their husbands. A woman may be considered disobedient, with few exceptions, if she decides to work without her husband’s consent.
UAE law permits domestic violence. Article 53 of the penal code allows the imposition of “chastisement by a husband to his wife and the chastisement of minor children” so long as the assault does not exceed the limits of Islamic law. Marital rape is not a crime. In 2010, the Federal Supreme Court issued a ruling, citing the penal code, that sanctions husbands’ beating and infliction of other forms of punishment or coercion on their wives, provided they do not leave physical marks.
Different emirates within the UAE’s federal system have laws that criminalize same-sex sexual relations, including Abu Dhabi, where “unnatural sex with another person” can be punished with up to 14 years in prison.
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