Most people know Dubai for its massive skyscrapers and luxurious hotels, but few know that the city was built by modern-day slaves.

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For months, the BBC’s Ben Anderson hung out around the glittering, insane towers springing up in Dubai trying to infiltrate the community of expatriate workers who are putting them up. What he found when he finally got in was that the jewel of the Arab world is almost entirely built upon imported slave labor.

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Originally aired in 2009 on

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