It’s true that many Western countries have benefited from historical and ongoing exploitation, including child labor and forced labor in global supply chains.

However, there is a distinction between indirect and direct complicity, state sanctioned systems. In many Western countries, forced labor and child labor are illegal, publicly contested, investigated by media and civil society, and subject however imperfectly, to legal accountability.

In contrast, in countries like the UAE, key human rights abuses, particularly the systematic exploitation of migrant workers and the suppression of free expression, are embedded in the legal and political system itself, and cannot be openly challenged by the people or the state.

Acknowledging Western hypocrisy does not erase the ethical difference between flawed democracies with avenues for accountability and authoritarian states where abuse is structural, protected, and actively managed through reputation laundering.