UAE Embassy in Brussels Commits Fraud Against Employees
The Belgian newspaper DH revealed a mass fraud against dozens of employees committed by the UAE embassy in the Belgian over several decades.
The newspaper pointed out that the Emirati Embassy had never announced, according to the legal mechanisms in place, that it had employed dozens of workers, and their salaries had been illegally paid without social protection or pension contributions for several years.
A former employee of the Emirati Embassy said that between 1976 and 1994 no employee was declared to the National Social Security Office and that their wages were 100% illegally paid.
The employee added that after the year 1994, the UAE embassy paid some employees the minimum wage, before paying their salaries in cash and in secret.
Faced with the anger of many employees who decided to protest their illegal status, the Emirati Embassy agreed in July and October of this year, to lay off ten of its thirty contracted employees.
Meanwhile, the UAE embassy decided in 2020 to outsource all its work to the UAE embassy, with the exception of diplomatic missions.
Former workers explain that the Emirati Embassy tried to get them to sign new contracts through the foreign company to continue working at home. Still, most of them refused, to be then arbitrarily sacked by the Embassy.
READ: HRW Warns Of Deteriorated Health Of Detained UAE Activist Ahmed Mansoor
The labour auditor in Brussels stated that he was aware of the situation, indicating that he would refer the file to a government committee specialized in dealing with any problems between employees working in diplomatic missions and the employer.
The auditor said, “the necessity of dealing with this type of issue within the framework of strict compliance with the rules stipulated in public international law, especially the Vienna Convention of April 18, 1961, on diplomatic relations.”
“After sending the first letters from the official notice to the embassy, we received negative responses, and they did not want to settle matters at the legal level,” the newspaper quoted criminal lawyer Antoine Chumi, the lawyer of four former employees of the UAE embassy.
The UAE embassy has also sought to outsource its services by appropriating the rights of former employees.
The UAE embassy is already using its diplomatic immunity, but according to Mr Chumi, the Abu Dhabi embassy has been convicted of hiring unauthorized workers.
In total, hundreds of thousands of euros are at stake today owed to these employees who were scammed by the Emirati Embassy
