If you scan online news sites from the middle east, you will find lots of stories about the plight of workers - bangladeshi workers. The coverage is not surprising really given that Bangladeshis make up 10 percent of the population of the United Arab Emirates.

Illicit relations: if you are a woman worker and you acquire a boyfriend you are likely to end up in the nick. And if no one pays for your air fare to go back home, you will stay there.

Sexual and Physical assault: Becoming a domestic help is a risky matter. So much so that the government of Bangladesh frowns upon it. Nevertheless labour touts/dalals still trick people into becoming domestic workers, and they often end up in very uncomfortable circumstances. Kulsum Akhtar Moni went to Dubai “in search of a better life for her daughter.” Somewhere along the way, she was coerced by five men into prostitution. She could not tolerate her life as a prostitute and the five threw her out. Threw her out of a window that is.

Bachelor Buildings of Abu Dhabi: The living accommodation provided for workers - both married and unmarried - is atrocious. Charles Stratford reports on the “rotten stench that fills the back of your throat…” in squalid, dimly lit and unsafe buildings.

Entrepreneurialism and devotion: Newsboy by night and car cleaner by day, Tajulislam holds down two jobs in Dubai and sends his hard earned money back home to support his parents. Remittances sent back home by Bangladeshis from the UAE totalled 512.6 million US dollars between July 2005-June 2006.