By Katie McQue January 3, 2022 at 4:01 p.m. EST DUBAI — The secret transfers usually take place at night to … More
Author: katiemcque84
I'm an journalist, based in Dubai.
The Guardian: Where’s Edelyn? The search for the Filipina maid who vanished in Saudi Arabia
Mired in debt, the mother of three left to work as part of the Gulf’s kafala labour system. She was last heard … More
The Washington Post: The Philippines repatriates dozens of women trafficked to Syria after report about abuses
By Katie McQue July 8, 2021 DUBAI — The Philippine government says it has repatriated all 55 Filipina women who had … More
The Washington Post: Instagram fuels rise in black-market sales of maids into Persian Gulf servitude
May 5, 2021 DUBAI — The advent of Instagram in recent years has helped create an international black market for … More
The Guardian: ‘They left us to die’: UK’s Afghan aid staff in hiding from Taliban
Evacuation of employees, not contractors, ‘splitting hairs’, says HRW, warning of days left to save lives Afghan employees who worked … More
The Guardian: ‘Monsters at the door’: migrant workers trapped in UN Afghan compound
Security contractors among hundreds from the Philippines, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka stuck without clear plans for evacuation When Taliban fighters started … More
The Guardian: Alone in Oman: Covid worsens abuse for trafficked women
Women from Sierra Leone tricked into servitude find themselves sold on under Gulf’s kafala system Isha knew she was in trouble when … More
The Washington Post: Sold into Syrian servitude, Filipina workers tell of abuse, rape and imprisonment
By Katie McQue Jan. 25, 2021 at 12:43 a.m. GMT+4 DUBAI — Josephine Tawaging was being bundled off to the airport … More
The Washington Post: Dubai seemed to have the coronavirus licked. Then it flung open its doors.
By Katie McQue Jan. 26, 2021 at 6:39 p.m. GMT+4 DUBAI — After a 12-hour shift in the Old Souk one … More
The Guardian: ‘What about justice?’: Chagos Islanders pin their hopes on Biden
Decades after the US took over the territory for a military base, families separated and forced to leave their homes … More
Katie McQue 