I was leaning against the walls of one of the halls in one of Kuwait’s hospitals when a heartbreaking scene caught my sight.. Two porters were  standing by the sliding doors of the ER and one of them had found an apple on a chair someone had left behind. He was about to take a bite into  the apple when he noticed the hunger in the eyes of his friend. He cracked the apple in two and shared it with him. The joy that was in their eyes to have been fortunate to eat half a left over apple broke my own heart in two.

These porters are brought to serve us in our hospitals and they are made many promises. Promises of good pay, promises of a roof over their head; a promise that they had believed could be their chance at a better life. They pack up and leave their families behind; siblings, spouses and children who depend completely on whatever these workers can afford to send back.

Those promises are not kept. They are paid 17KD a month IF they’re lucky. Part of that 17KD gets deducted for a room which they share with no less than 10 other workers, and another part gets deducted for food that never gets delivered. They send what’s left back to their starving families and make do with the quarters they get from pushing wheel chairs around the hospital. This is how they survive. While we sleep in our warm beds on a full stomach, they starve and struggle just to make it through to the next day..

And as if that isn’t bad enough, the private companies who bring over these workers have withheld their salaries for the past 10 months. For the past 10 months these workers have received nothing. Not a fils. They’ve gone on from strike to strike and still, nothing is being done. Why? Where is the money? Allow me to explain.

Every year, when the state draws out its balance for the year, it pays these private companies  the full salaries for these workers for the whole year. So where does the money go? Where does over 250 million dinars go? It goes into a saving account in the bank where it accumulates interest and grows. So, while these workers fight their hunger and devastation just to survive one day at a time, while their families wait and receive nothing to relieve them from their poverty, some soul-less, conscience-less, money crazed somebody is making millions of dinars instead of providing these unfortunates their simple needs for basic survival.

The problem is, the banks benefit immensely from these saving accounts and an adjustment from the government to only release salaries on a monthly basis to these companies would cause a drastic fall in banks’ credit. The way these companies have been getting around prosecution is quite simple: whenever the workers go on strike and they are put through investigation by the insurance ministry, they pay off a couple of month’s salaries to these workers just to get themselves off the investigation list and the cycle goes on and on.

The funny thing is these companies try to compensate the health ministry with staff when the original workers are on strike, but supply them with nothing but gloves. This porter came into my mother’s office asking her where to start cleaning and he held out his gloved hands helplessly trying to figure out how he was to vacuum, scrub tables and dust with gloved hands only. .. Seriously?!

I do not blame any one of these workers if they had to steal! And they wonder what’s causing so much crime in our country? These workers are desperate. Not desperate for an escalade or a fancy new dress or a luxury duplex.. they’re desperate to stay alive enough to push around wheelchairs so that they can get something to eat or keep them warm! They are being pressurized to distribute drugs by dealers who know they’re suffering. And in effect? Our own youth are sinking and becoming destroyed.

An investigator once told me you would not believe the number of these workers who commit crimes and purposefully want to get caught. Why? Because that way they’d get deported, since they cannot afford to go back home, or put into jail where at least they know they won’t starve to death.

Why?! Why is a country as rich and educated as ours treating these workers in this barbaric inhumane manner while other countries raise campaigns and charities for them?! Why is the arab world becoming a society with the title of Islam but no Islamic attributes, while other nations are without Islam but live to all it’s teachings?!

It’s in our hands to push for change and increase awareness as people when the government turns a blind eye to these disasters. For the sake of not only these people and our conscience, but also for the sake of the future of our country.