Within a week, two housemaids have ended their lives in Bahrain and two have attempted to do so. Bahrain does not offer protection to domestic workers under its labor laws.
On April 30, the Gulf Daily News reported that the body of Samantha Kumud, a 37-year-old Sri Lankan maid was found hanging from a ceiling fan at her sponsor’s house in Buhair. Today, the paper reported about another suicide, this time of Mary Jane, a 40-year-old Filipino maid. She was found in the swimming pool at her sponsor’s villa in Budaiya. The police believes that this was a suicide.
On April 28th, an Ethiopian maid, Suse Abene (28) leaped from her sponsor’s moving car in Janabiya and suffered multiple injuries. On May 2nd, Edna Reyes Rosario (42), a Filipino maid, poured boiling water over herself in a suicide attempt in her sponsor’s home in Sitra. Suse was hospitalized with burns all over her body.
Domestic workers, the most vulnerable of migrant workers, are not protected under Bahrain’s labor law. The welcomed changes in Bahrain’s sponsorship law do not apply to domestic workers either. Recently, Dr. Abdelbast Abdelmohsen, the Bahraini Labour Ministry’s legal adviser stated that domestic workers will be excluded from the scope of Bahrain’s future labor law, which is currently being formulated. Instead, Dr. Abdelmohsen said that “under the new Labour Law, domestic workers will be taken into account indirectly.” The Bahraini official stated that domestic workers “will still be protected and subjected to several rules and provisions which would ensure their basic rights safeguarded. Such provisions would include having an official contract determining a fixed salary, stating a weekly day off, end-of-term bonus and exemption from legal fees.”
As a recent Human Rights Watch report noted, standard employment contracts, which are used in the UAE, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia “fall short of providing the comprehensive protections provided under national labor laws.” Unprotected domestic workers who feel that they have nowhere to turn, sometimes see suicide as the only way to escape abuse or hard living conditions.
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June 12, 2010
Id like to share my experience about my housemaid, shes from indonesia, shes with us for 8 mos. after treating her as one of our family, we trusted her, providing her time and any necessity she needed, we found out she was sneaking out to see some man while we are in the mids of our sleeping in the night. We had comfront her, if was she really doing it? and she deny everything though there was a lot of her footprints and finger marks through our window. Since she had known that we found out her jumping out the window between 2am till 5am, she decided to vanished completely her present in our home. When we came home we found one of our window open where she jumped. She runaway! It was so unfortunate time for us, its so disperating, we had reported her to police but then what else they can do for us as the employer. We reported to the agency where we got her, but they couldnt provide us a good benefits after paying them around 600BD. The contract is not fair at all! the amount we paid is just for 3 mos probation? It sound rediculous to me. Agency should consider some cirtcumstances that if the housemaid decided to rumaway for their own purpose,, we should get our money back. my point may sound rediculous oppositing the law but why we have to pay for the rest of the time that the housemaid is no longer in our hand, and we have to pay again to get another housemaid……I just couldnt think about it…please advised, we cant keep paying the agency everytime the housemaid runaway, atleast they should think any consiqences if their for hire housemaid may not continue their working period. What the benefit of the good employer and if the housemaid are not good. 3 months is too short that the maid can take advantage so they’ll get the final sponsorship then intentionally right after the period they start their malicious act.
June 30, 2010
2 points:
1. What do you do if you have been made aware of a child domestic servant years ago but have very little information – you don’t know the area or have any names (and no knowledge if the person is still there)?
2. In response to above: I don’t understand why, if your employee is sneaking out to see a man, it should be any of your business? You pay for her to work but you don’t own her as a person. People should have freedom when they’re not ‘working’ for you. I would have run away too and if you keep treating your employees like that, you’ll find that they all disappear. Maybe try to not be so controlling? All you should ‘manage’ is the work, not the person. She should really have a key so she can just go out of the door and come back if she wants. You know – like a human.