After giving up farming in Pakistan, he had been working in Dubai as a contractor for Talabat, an online food delivery app popular in the United Arab Emirates. Ifran’s June death represents just one in a growing number of casualties among food delivery riders in Dubai, workers and advocates say, as the pandemic pushed millions of people indoors and accelerated a surge in app-based orders. The boom has transformed Dubai’s streets and stores and drawn thousands of desperate riders, predominantly Pakistanis, into the high-risk, lightly regulated and sometimes-fatal work. “For food delivery riders in the UAE, the issue of exploitation is usually on the part of the sponsor. On Dubai’s streets, more than a dozen delivery riders interviewed said they knew of two or three co-workers killed every month.

Source: Egypt Independent September 13, 2021 06:00 UTC