Pakistan’s iconic comedy show Fifty Fifty has this skit of a man dressed like a Middle Eastern Sheikh sitting in a cafeteria – and other people (notably acting legend Ismail Tara) go to him and say ‘Dubai, Dubai?’, meaning that they would like the Sheikh, who they assume is from Dubai, to hire them and take them along. During that time, there was also a famous PTV drama called ‘Dubai Chalo’ where the story was about people from Pakistan who were so desperate to go to Dubai that they would risk their lives to travel in rickety boats across the Arabian Sea.
Over the years, and till recently, Dubai and the Gulf region, in general, became the destination of choice for many low-income Pakistanis looking to strike it rich abroad, and hundreds of thousands of Pakistan went to these countries, mostly as labourers. However, the wages they earned were still far higher than they would have been able to earn at home in Pakistan. This boom in Pakistanis traveling to the Gulf has fuelled the billions of dollars of remittances that flow into Pakistan each year.
However, in the case of Dubai, and possibly in other Gulf states as well, this is changing. Pakistanis are no longer granted visas with the ease that they were in the past – in particular, those who are male under the age of 40 and applying as a single applicant are almost universally rejected now. In recent months, even those well-heeled Pakistanis who had tickets to Coldplay concerts in Abu Dhabi in January 2025 were refused visas, and there are reports that many Pakistanis who managed to get tickets for the Pakistan-India cricket Champions Trophy match in Dubai on February 23 were not able to get visas. All this while, on YouTube and other social media platforms there is a sustained campaign featuring Pakistani celebrities for people to visit Dubai (the obvious question being where are the visas?).
The response of the Pakistan government to what seems to be an unannounced change in visa policy regarding Pakistanis has been unconvincing, to say the least. Its representative in the UAE, Ambassador Faisal Tirmizi, has been on several TV channels and has tried to put a brave face on the changing times. His main point is that the UAE's policies on its labour markets have changed now and they are not really looking for labourers from countries like Pakistan but rather want people with skills who can work in white-collar jobs. There’s also the sense that the UAE wants to switch the composition of its expat workers population which is heavily skewed towards South Asian countries and hence single men from Pakistan are now finding it impossible to obtain visas.
It would be fair to say that a majority of Pakistanis do respect the laws of the countries they live in or visit as tourists and that a minority is giving everyone a bad name and making it difficult for genuine visitors to travel to Dubai
This, then, brings us to a couple of important questions: The first is why are still so many who apply for tourist or short-term visit visas are still getting rejected. And the other is what should Pakistan do now given that the policy change seems to be more or less permanent.
The first question has an answer if one carefully reads recent reports on the issue. Pakistani officials recently briefed members of Parliament on the issue and said that while there is no official change in the visa policy, the UAE – as well as other Gulf states – are unhappy because they have found many instances of people going on a tourist visa only to end up begging on the streets of their cities (which is apparently a lucrative livelihood compared to them earning a living in Pakistan), and also that many people from Pakistan don’t respect the local laws, especially as they relate to the media and social media in particular, and forget that they are in UAE where media censorship is implemented in letter and spirit, especially with regard to any reports or posts on social media that show the UAE in poor light. In addition to this, there have been instances of women walking around in public being filmed and that is not only socially inappropriate but also illegal. And as if this wasn’t enough, there were cases, especially when the PTI government was ousted and following the violence of May 9, when supporters of the party resident in the UAE protested physically or made political posts on social media. All these things have not gone down well with the UAE authorities.
And that brings up the second question: What should Pakistan and Pakistanis do next?
Well for starters they should learn to respect the laws of the land that they visit and understand that they are not in their home country, especially when they post on social media. They should utilise the visa granted to them by any country only for the purpose for which it was granted.
It would be fair to say that a majority of Pakistanis do respect the laws of the countries they live in or visit as tourists and that a minority is giving everyone a bad name and making it difficult for genuine visitors to travel to Dubai. But that’s how it is and Pakistanis who still wish to travel to Dubai either as tourists or want to work there will have to adjust to the new reality.