In 2010 DanWatch initiated an investigation of how poor people from countries including India end up indebted when they travel to Dubai and build the city's flashy prestige projects.

DanWatch has found that migrant workers often receive lower wages than agreed, and work under conditions that they have no say on. It also documented that the largest Danish engineering consulting company, Ramboll, has partners in Dubai that hires immigrants to work in slave-like conditions. International Labour Organization calls it the worst form of work that exits.

The project 'The Hidden Slaves' was conducted by DanWatch in autumn 2010 and winter 2011 on the basis of desk research and field research in Dubai and India.

In Dubai were collected photographic and video documentation and conducted interviews with migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh.

Further research has been conducted in the state of Tamil Nadu in India in spring 2011. Here DanWatch interviewed four Indian workers who had returned from the United Arab Emirates after having been employed in the construction industry.