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We are delighted that our network has extended into the Middle East and North African region.  This expansion will be headed up by Jaana Quaintance, Senior Project Manager – Middle East and North Africa, who will be based in Dubai from April 2009. Prior to her move, Jaana has worked in the UK team for four years. She is an experienced project manager and auditor and has lead on strategy development for large corporate clients.

Impactt understands the pressures faced by multinational companies in addressing labour standards issues in global supply chains. The opening of the Dubai office reflects a new trend in global sourcing for our European clients towards Morocco, Egypt and for American clients Middle Eastern countries such as Jordan. Nearly ten million migrant workers, most of them unskilled or semi-skilled, work in Gulf States. An estimated 3.11 million foreign workers are employed in the United Arab Emirates alone. The majority of these are manual and construction workers with jobs vulnerable to falls in demand and a lack of employment protection.

Some of the challenges our clients are facing in the Middle East include: poor health and safety, child labour (particularly in the agricultural sector), racial discrimination, extreme hours and opposition to trade union rights. During the economic downturn other challenges might include workers being dismissed, the widespread payment of an agency fee to secure a job and the low wages earned for long hours.

Morocco and Tunisia are ranked fourth and fifth in terms of garment export value to the EU.  ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder has commented that: “the whole of Moroccan industry, and in particular the textile and clothing sectors must change its working practices, which all too often contravene labour legislation”.

Homeworking and subcontracting are both prevalent resulting in a lack of transparency down the supply chain. Improving transparency is particularly important in countries with known child labour. L’Union Marocaine du Travail (UMT), a key union in Morocco, estimates that between 5-10,000 children between the ages of 8 and 14 work in the artisan carpet industry and between 2,000 and 3,000 work in the export-oriented carpet industry.

Follow Jaana and the issues she is working on in further blogs on the Impactt website.