The 50-year-old maid, Ariyawathie, reported that she was forced to work around the clock for the many occupants of the house and whenever she would get tired and asked for a break, her sponsors inserted a nail inside of her as punishment. The doctors at the Sri Lankan hospital said that the nails were heated before being forcibly pushed under her skin. Ariyawathie added, “I had to work from dawn to dusk. I hardly slept. They beat me and threatened to kill me and hide my body… They were really devils with no mercy at all.”

The Sri Lankan mission in Riyadh told the paper that they’ll summon the sponsors of the maid “to discuss the issue”.

ICARUS
or
ESSAY: ICARUS DOES HAMDAN: THE PORN TAPE (VHS)

By Deepak Unnikrishnan

At night, when street lights stood exhausted and alone, out ventured men and women bicycling by Hamdan’s street corridors, watchful as they hunted. Their job was to find construction lads who had mistakenly fallen off incomplete buildings and set them right, finding lost limbs, make them better, glue on lost limbs, unless the damaged had to be taken away so they could be picked up and worked on by trained personnel, who would shape and roll everything back into place, like perfect cake makers re-piping damaged frosting.

Anna Mole had her route, chalked out after years of such labor. Seniority counted on such runs.

Anna Mole’s hair was long, brittle – tied into a rough bun – dry, her body aged flab and dipping breasts; her skin had begun to break itself loose, in places sag like an old bag. She was now old. Just like that.

Thirty years ago, in the seventies, she would, could, and did fix scores of men a day, correcting limbs, reattaching them, sewing up torn skin, and sometimes if asked , praying. Problems were a little easier to handle then, so it felt. Since oil had just begun to dictate terms, construction was young, a little infant working out possibilities, not flashily imperious, just downright clumsy, pretty much afraid in the desert burn. And she was young, the men fell from smaller-storied buildings, and often if she didn’t know what to do, she would talk to these blokes until they fell asleep or realized little else could be done but wait for searching and helpful colleagues with better expertise. The men were grateful to Anna. Away from home, with other men for company, women were scarce. Sex did not become as important as the need for conversation while body parts were being reattached. And sex could be found, innovations made: A man could keep a man company. There are ways. Massages were frequent and requested.

For four hours once she sat with a man who held in place with his right arm his head which had almost torn itself loose from the impact he made as he fell an embarrassing six flights. Now what, he had asked. Don’t know, she said, lets think this out, reaching into her bag for plasticine; meanwhile, tell me about home.

Home was shitty, a wreck, he said, thinking, an emaciating village turning bitter by the minute. But that is not why he left. Everyone was going abroad. He followed. They hired anyone, he heard. As long as you can stand heat, you are good. Papers would be a cinch after some cash. A cinch! Tax-free, no less, money was there, money to be made, lots of money I heard! I think my legs are broken; can’t move ‘em.

Heat! Shit, he knew heat. Look at him, dark meat.

Iqbal; his name. Iqbal. There was no family. Here, who brought him here – no one. He left on his own, sold his share of the family plot. Parents? Yes. Siblings? Yup, a brother. But no wife – a wife would come later, he explained, and kids (he would like two, a boy and a girl: Zuheir and Asma) who would all live in a home properly stocked and dressed like a furniture store advert. His head jumped, stepped back a thought – That’s what I tell the girls. When I tell em I will name my girls Zuheir and Asma, I have them by the crotch. I am fooling no one. Them and me, we both need excuses.

He had come for money, easy money that normally wouldn’t go to a high school dropout. Former teachers who tormented him in his youth envied him now. What good is a farm boy going to do with the shit they teach, eh? And then, after living the dream grabbed from the muck, he slipped like a bungling monkey. And fell. He remembered falling. There hadn’t been time to think. There had been only time to say damn by-God. He thinks he screamed. Maybe he rushed a little too quickly from pylon to pylon. But he thought he had perfected his pace, figured it all out. There was a dance: Dab. Shovel. Hammer. Layer. But a misstep is a misstep.

The heat hadn’t bothered him. He knew how to handle it, avoiding thinking about the steam which accentuates its potency as it boils a man’s mind, barely suffocating when he smelled his own sweat, instinctively gulping water – which, although not as delicious as salted buttermilk, was always on hand – slowly, regularly, without gasping for air, without a crazy rush or hurry, without water biting his lungs. Heat troubles people, he said, bothering them. When some people pass me by in the street I notice they quicken their pace or sidestep. I am being ignored. I know why. The heat, you know? In summer, your clothes burn, you burn. You smell bad, like an overused stove. Simple.

In the open, the heat was easier to handle – that is if one had to choose, mentioned Iqbal, even though it was possible for a man to shrivel like a raisin, losing height, color becoming splotchy, decaying in the sun like a plant. However, the open still let the body breathe. There was wind some days. In closed quarters, packed in bunk beds, without air conditioning, sometimes with air conditioning, sometimes faulty, sometimes not, the body would bake, freeze and smoke, often humidity burning eyes, salt escaping, fever and dehydration building. Bodies would reel from the sudden loss of liquid, crumpling completely during lunch break when getting to shade under tractor beds and crane rumps became more important than food. Shirts for pillows, newspapers blankets, the men rested. At night, the heat stung differently, especially when Iqbal was whisked away to his quarters, barreled with his mates in trailers that reeked of fluids collected over the day’s toil, multiple smells that penetrated skin and wouldn’t leave even when the body was scrubbed hard with coconut husk and cheap soap. But the men would be tired, the stench ignored, practically few demanding they sit near the grilled windows, although they were fights once in a while for this particular privilege in the mornings. Once the novelty of sitting near the window wore off, the men near them would look out worn and aimless, hit by breeze when the truck moved. It was still not too bad, as much as people in cars below who never made eye contact thought it to be – disturbed no doubt by workers in open trailers resembling goats driven to the abattoir. It was still not too bad. They, expat-peasants, the kids of construction, were alive, could breathe without effort, had jobs – so it was all good. Well, better than worse. And so they would sit, knees locked, palms on thighs, bodies slumped, evaporating, malcontent but non-complaining. This was routine, commute. And commute could be handled, as long as one was paid. And Iqbal’s lot were paid, unlike others not as fortunate, frustrated guest workers who would take to the streets in desperation demanding their wages, creating hell, blocking traffic, throwing rocks at the police, burning vehicles and equipment, unfamiliar public chaos in a land where public protests were illegal. But in desperate times, desperate pleas. The ringleaders were identified from within, arrested and deported. The rest were asked if they wanted to stay; their employers would behave, the Ministry assured them. Or leave. There would be embassy sponsored planes waiting.

There was little to go back to. And there is always the embarrassment of return. Most chose to stay.

Iqbal wondered if Anna Mole would hold his head so he could use both hands to scratch his hair which was beginning to itch. She steadied her palm under his head. It’s the water in the camps, he said, I am sure of it. When I can, I use bottled water. Did you know Pepsi rusts metal? A laugh. When he laughed, she remembered, his head bobbed like a yo-yo. His stubble had gone white, mustache fuzzy, a crazy black. He smelled of paint thinner, heat, sweat and hot sand.

Hamdan, her haunt, her hood, was growing, from a tiny city center to a mutating worm that refused to tire. The streets grew streets, parked next to slabs of steel towering over trees planted to grow exactly the same, shade mathematically proper. Glitz and order jumped up and claimed its rightful spot in shops marked to be cool in a city of structured cool. Roads were widened and brushed regularly in the sun to be spotless and black, scrubbed to ride machines OD’ing on dino juice. Tall stringy lamps erected, measured the right distance apart, provided daytime at night. Stare above and one could make out mercenary architects barking instructions to construct the perfect city – “Move. This. There. That. There.” They never slept, barking orders into the night, into the wee hours of the morning, cycling past morning and afternoon till nighttime came, never resting. Into this template, this Monopoly board, were dropped international foot soldiers, ready to work to make buildings bigger, streets longer, the economy richer, working an idea into shape. And vamoose after.

Hamdan, Anna Mole recalled fondly, used to be little, a runt of a city center bare feet and dirty nailed with desert sand in its arse, but it would be potty trained to be respectful, coached and beaten to have ambition, to exact maximum mileage from burning workers as they hung from buildings, remaining indifferent as elsewhere toddlers rode imbecile camels to finish lines. No more. The latter. No more. Mechanical jockeys ride the beasts now. Someone complained. The kids were sent home. A show on HBO. Yadda yadda. It’s all good now. No hard feelings, just business.

Just don’t get in the way of anything, the streets hissed. Get in the way of what? Doesn’t matter. Anything! The rules had been clear-cut: Come—Work—Go. The workers attached a third, Obey. But no one forced to come, the excuse – No one forced to come. No time to reflect on politics, Iqbal mentioned. We know why we are here. We come for that. We leave because of that. And there is little here for me to stay; I don’t know the people, I don’t trust the people, even our people, no trust ‘em, I trust ‘em least, I stay away, I am tolerated – I am fine with that. I came to make money, fuck! True, couldn’t be denied, people came willingly, whatever the cost, crawling into canons ready to be shot out, like Iqbal, sick of rotting into old age despondent and dreamless, like uncles they knew. So into cannons huddled thousands, waiting to get out, hoping to figuratively panhandle for a couple of years, gourd, then off again to rebuild and embellish communities left behind. There were no lies at the gates as ships docked, people pinned like barnacles, as planes landed coughing new arrivals, as smugglers chucked live cargo miles away from port or land. Plenty passengers and stowaways understood: Here, stood their futures. 1970. No, ‘72, she had come in ‘72.

The city flirted with everyone, making all give and give up, like plugged-in dairy cows: Skin, desire, life, money, all available, for there was lots of it, all of it, displayed and released into the air, getting everyone stoned in a place where such highs were forbidden. But everyone snorted. Couldn’t be helped. The air was spiked. Distraction became the method of control as the city rewarded many. Many, bringing families, Many, begetting kids willing to obey and help the cause of stay, work but leave. Children came, out of regulated sex and marriage, confused children not exactly belonging, living as packaged products, not worrying, rarely bothering, having a higher and headier capacity to snort than their parents. Children with better accents, fabrics and gene, kids built out of cable and shopping, kids raised on a psyche of impermanence and British chocolate, coddled by Japanese electronics and American telly. And around the kids and parents of fortunate dark meats lived those who built and constructed, little grimy cogs working a shiny machine, careful not to be in anyone’s way, dark meat paper boys hawking newspapers in crisp heat without talking, dark meat gardeners fixing sprinklers making sand into plant, dark meat short nannies making bread, rearing kids, bedded in someone else’s home, dark meat Shylocks lending and plundering fellow dark meat social plankton, as mute dark meat builders continued to nut and bolt, even falling quietly when they slipped, falling quickly.

Anna Mole would retire. She was approaching sixty, and when sixty it was time to go. Another country to creep back into once the farewell party ended with a little cash maybe, hugs and goodwill. A house had been built with the riches. Inside lived furniture, electronics, more furniture, the father and the daughter, more furniture. The daughter — married now, third grandchild on way. The father, sick and forgetful, waiting to get picked up and resurrected by the Holy Ghost. Maybe now when she goes back they could try and be husband and wife. Other incompletes existed. As a woman, she felt strange, rearranged into something else. She had given birth to a child, a child she barely knew, a child she once sent money to, a child looked after by a husband she barely knew anymore. No more was he Abraham, just Husband, a thing with a name, but a good man he is, was. He must have had someone over the years. He should have had someone. When she first cheated on him, right after sex, once the fuckmate was told to leave, she hoped: He too must have someone. Initially, when she went back home to visit, they would screw for hours. Not love or caress, just screw maniacally like machines. Before, he would ejaculate inside her. Then they would talk. Afterwards, without either saying a word, she went on the pill, he would pull out and spray. Foreplay would come after, not before. But gradually, the fucks ceased, habits – I stopped red meat, no more beef fry, doctor’s orders, told you, remember? – lost to memory. The talking ended. Eventually, it stopped bothering her she cheated. They spoke over the phone to compare accounts, robotically asking each other a check-list of questions. Even to reflect, one must care. She cheated, but so did he. She was sure. He wouldn’t have been human if otherwise.

The child grew well. Anna, the mother, had been responsible in making it grow into an adult by wiring money in on time. Otherwise, she had no idea who this person was. Her daughter’s name was Diana, named after Princess Di in a moment of TV madness. That much the mother was certain. Diana’s husband: Paul. Diana’s children: Bobby and Paul. Bobby loved shrimp. Paul hated eating ungulates. The family lived abroad. In the Gulf, like the grandmother. Sending her gifts and photographs on holidays and birthdays.

When time permitted, Ana would take the skeletal open elevator construction sites carried, way to the top, the roof, settle down close to the edge and look out, looking over Hamdan. And smoke. The buildings being built were getting taller. From that height, the landscape’s plastic surgery couldn’t be hidden. Ana almost always looked in the direction of the water. In a country where the land is more desert, that is what one does. The corniche stood grey, black and green tonight, colors realized by the disembowelment of what was once a simple park looking over a large salty man-made moat (lake?), water forced in from the sea. Then dammed. Not pretty, but sufficient.

On her walks, Anna Mole would perch on the steel fence by the moat (lake?), underneath the giant cherry lights resembling dragonfly eyes, and look out into the water. There was no surf, but a little tide was allowed in, bringing in spittle, chewing gum wrappers, fizz cans, little fishes that pretended to lick ice cream and matches that hit and played tag at the feet of the stone walls, where algae clung. It had been a place to just be and do nothing except have cheap soft ice cream and roasted peanuts.

Early one morning, joggers noticed fat Caterpillar scoopers and tractors sleeping near the date palms as two solidly built dredgers started work in the water. More land was needed to accommodate a pulsing population. The sea would have to be kicked back a bit, farther out. As a compromise, more fountains were being built. A lurid plastic horticultural operation, Anne Mole felt. Nothing was being spared, even before she would leave, more make-up and new mixes would be added, transforming everything, recoloring, robbing her of places to turn to and say goodbye before she left. Memories were being taken away without permission. The old souk, a warm moniker – she turned towards where it used to be – even that, gone. In its place, a more orderly market place. Nothing had changed. The shopkeepers were the same. The stores were the same. Still, everything had changed. The drama irritated her, her reaction especially, that need to be a little upset, a silly reaction, a silly thing to do. The city was built to move and change, modeled to be fabulous, glitzy and drag-queenish. The old souk was, well, old. The merchants who hung out in these shops looked like their goods, no-nonsense and cheap. On Fridays, she recalled, she would walk by, past bargain calls jamming her ears by merchants who believed in old-school market bedlam. The toy sellers worked the crowds best, busting out their fellas and sending their battery operated circus into the crowd. Through miniature green tanks, trumpeteering scarecrows, marching soldiers, cymbal banging clowns, rotating princesses, woofing dogs, somersaulting police cars, she would be, bumping into people, figuring out what to buy, inhaling smells, dirty and fine. The malls were better, she knew, even air conditioned, freezeboxed like a butcher’s den, but if only they had kept the coarseness of the souk, instead of tearing it down, just letting it be, eased into retirement like a faithful horse. Instead. Now. Even markets. Were well behaved. And clean. The marks of progress that isn’t questioned but respectfully acknowledged . Coveted as markers of first-world paraphernalia.

Sometimes, there would be company on building tops. Others who did her kind of work had the same idea, but rooftop trysts ended for most years ago. It’s for the young. The rest, people like her, went up to the roof to remember what was being left behind, and even at this age, not squander chances to dream or think wild (once more; maybe one more time). But most went up there to say goodbye. Before, the roofs’ meant something else. Now, roof tops she pretended were stopovers for angels* in transit, taking a break from the din of death and prayer. A place to fold wings and reflect. Maria, her friend, mentioned the idea over tea. In Europe, Maria said, her boss told her, giant old buildings have statues of gremlins and angels glued to the side. At night, when the world slept, these fellows would go out into the night, keeping watch, creating mischief. No such luck here, Anna Mole was convinced. But it would be nice, having an angel to chat with over a couple of fags, or a gremlin to excite and spook her. But angels need papers here. Even gremlins couldn’t sneak by. None would come or get in without them. Perhaps the location wasn’t flamboyant enough and the paperwork difficult. Flying over Hamdan on work visas or monthly visit permits could get bloody tedious, unless of course, the angels were from those countries exempt from crazy mandates, enabling them to fly over Hamdan’s air space without bothering to check in their pockets half the time for identification, enabling them to stock up and refuel without letting Big Brothers and Bigger Brothers know. Just land and leave. No angels here, only a reflective horny broad on the threshold of menopause. Between puffs, fingers worked. A little spit, slow play. Who said this was pleasure. This was need. The angels weren’t coming. The gremlins wouldn’t dare. That was fine, she was busy. And even if they did turn up, they would have to wait. Or participate.

Before long everyone understood. This was what is – Hamdan! — where people Come, Work, Go.

* The angels did come. Once. Surveying the building tops, as men and women sporting wax wings readied themselves to jump. Each sun-burnt angel picked a man or a woman and stood behind each person, giving each one tight hugs. Then one by one every wax-winged man and woman was pushed over the roof.

About the author
Deepak writes. Short stories. He is Abu Dhabi-an, manufactured and product tested there by a quiet yet befuddled South Indian family. Icarus is taken from his forthcoming short story collection, Bane: The Brined Brain of I. His first set of shorts, Coffee Stains in a Camel’s Teacup (2004) was published by Vijitha Yapa Publications (Colombo, Sri Lanka).

Published March 01, 2009

Alarming Rates of Suicide Among Migrant Workers in Kuwait
Written by Benjamin Joffe-Walt
Published Thursday, August 05, 2010

Rights group says suicide rates are up, with a migrant worker in the Gulf state committing or attempting suicide every 2.5 days.

One migrant worker commits or attempts suicide every 2.5 days in Kuwait, a local rights group has claimed.

Migrant Rights, a Middle East advocacy organization for migrant workers, insists that reports of 23 cases of migrant workers in Kuwait committing or attempting suicide in June and July “an alarming trend.”

The most recent numbers follow 17 cases of suicide or attempted suicide by domestic workers in Kuwait during May alone, and 25 more in February and March of this year.

Female Asian domestic workers make up the vast majority of the suicides, most of which are committed by swallowing chemicals or jumping out of a window.

Migrant Rights says workers are driven to suicide by harsh working conditions and employer abuse, all of which are ignored by local officials and media.

“To this day we’ve heard of zero cases where the sponsors of the workers faced consequences for driving their worker to suicide,” the rights group wrote in the report. “Reports about these miserable workers are pushed to the back pages of newspapers in Kuwait. The workers are nameless in their death as they are in their lives, with the papers not bothering to learn the name of the workers and sometimes even their age and nationality. Reports suggest that the reason for suicides are psychological problems of the victims, without trying to understand what about the treatment of the sponsor leads these migrant workers to suicide en masse.”

Kuwaiti labor laws largely do not protect expatriate domestic workers, many of whom are defrauded or coerced into coming to Kuwait only to end up in exploitative work or, in some cases, slavery.

Physical and sexual abuse, the withholding of passports and the non-payment of wages are all common occurrences for migrant workers in the region.

Speaking to The Media Line, Tariq A. Haq, a research economist in the International Labour Organization’s Employment Analysis and Research Unit, argued that the phenomenon was a product of the sponsorship system, in which migrant workers enter Kuwait, have their passports taken from them and end up tied to their specific sponsoring employer.

“If a worker’s employer has absconded and left them with ten months of unpaid wages, they are just left there to fend for themselves,” he told The Media Line. “If they turn to the courts it can take a long time, and that doesn’t help a worker in a very precarious situation.”

“So the workers find themselves stuck; unable to return home without a passport; having debts back in their home countries; and living in a terrible situation without income and unable to go to seek alternative employment under the sponsorship system,” Haq said. “It puts phenomenal pressure on the worker and leads to desperation.”

“Now it’s the summer time as well so we’re talking about construction workers working in extreme heat and living in labor camps without air conditioning,” he continued. “The authorities try to clamp down on this as much as possible, and some of the countries in the region have been trying to improve their social protection systems and labor inspection capacities, but you need to have a critical mass of inspectors to make sure that these types of violations are not taking place.”

Haq said that the global economic slowdown has negatively affected Kuwait’s migrant workers.

“Kuwait was relatively harder hit by the crises, so this has not helped and there have been a lot of cases of employers unable to pay their workers wages,” he added. “So the story would fit that with a stronger overall economic impact on the country, the plight of migrant workers may be slightly worse.”

Shafeeq Ghabra, professor of political science at Kuwait University and the founding president of the American University of Kuwait, said domestic workers were particularly vulnerable.

“It could be conditions among migrant workers, not being happy, abuse, all kinds of things could play into it,” he told The Media Line. “The entire setup for migrant workers has to be looked at.”

“If they are domestic workers in homes, you can’t know what is happening or detect what’s going through the mind of the other,” Ghabra said. “They are often trapped in a bad situation – psychologically, socially, sexually, contractually vis-a-vis their employers.”

As the standard of living increased in Kuwait over the last decade, hundreds of thousands flocked to the country, drastically transforming its demographic makeup.

With just over three million residents today, Kuwait is believed to host more than 2.35 million foreign workers, or around three-in-every-four people in the country.

The vast majority of these immigrants are of East and South Asian descent: Bangladeshi, Filipino, Indian, Pakistani or Sri Lankan nationals.

An estimated 100,000 stateless people have also immigrated to the country. Many of the stateless immigrants are Arab and have obtained Kuwaiti citizenship through marriage.

Last summer Kuwait threatened to deport 100,000 foreign workers after bogus companies brought them into the country under the false pretense of jobs which do not exist.

Such companies are accused of seeking profits by charging foreign workers large sums for the right to come work in Kuwait, but then failing to arrange employment, food or shelter for them. The workers then have to work in menial jobs and do not have sufficient funds to return home.

Copyright © 2010 The Media Line. All Rights Reserved.

Previous reports by Migrant-Rights.org have exposed an alarming trend of suicides by migrant workers in Kuwait. In May 2010 alone, we documented 17 cases of suicide and attempted suicide by domestic workers in Kuwait. During April, 12 migrant workers attempted or succeeded in ending their lives in Kuwait. During March and the end of February, there were 13 reported cases of suicide and suicide attempt by migrants in the emirate. And during November of 2008 we’ve covered another 13 cases of suicide and attempted suicides by expatriate workers.

On June 2, an Asian maid killed herself by swallowing detergent in her sponsor’s home in Waha, al-Jahra. On the same day, an unidentified woman attempted to kill herself by swallowing chemicals and was taken to the hospital where her stomach was washed. The fact that the paper did not bother identifying the woman indicates that she is a foreigner. On June 6 in was reported that an Asian woman jumped to her death from a residential building in al-Jahra. A day later, on June 7, it was reported that a Filipino maid threatened to kill herself after an argument with her sponsor’s wife in their home in Ardiya. The security forces that arrived at the scene managed to talk the maid out of taking her life.

On June 9, a Filipina maid ended her life by jumping from the fifth floor of her sponsor’s house in Hawali. Two days later, on June 11, a Filipina maid “fell” to her death from the fifth floor in her sponsor’s house in Mahboula.

On June 14, a Sri-Lankan domestic worker hanged himself to death from the ceiling in his sponsor’s home in Ferdous. A day later it was reported that a 26-year-old Ethiopian maid attempted to kill herself by swallowing poison. She was rushed to the hospital in time. The paper claimed that the maid suffered from psychological problems. The next day a 33-year-old Indian woman was rushed to the hospital after attempting to end her life by swallowing chemicals. On June 22, a 30-year-old Filipino housemaid attempted to kill herself by overdosing on pills. She was found unconscious and was rushed to the hospital in time.

The month of July began with a report on the 1st about the suicide of an Indian migrant in his apartment in Faranwiya. On July 3, an Asian domestic worker attempted to take her own life in her sponsor’s house in Naim-Jahara by drinking insecticide. A day later, on July 4, an Ethiopian maid hanged herself to death shortly after arriving to her sponsor’s house in al-Jahra.

On July 6, there were three reported cases of suicide by migrant workers. A 39-year-old Indian worker swallowed detergent and then sustained further severe injuries when falling from a building of a private university in Salmiya. The woman was rushed to the ICU in Mubarak al-Kabeer hospital. On the same day, al-Qabas daily reported about the suicide by hanging of an Asian worker in the office of a construction company he worked in, and the attempted suicide of an Ethiopian maid who swallowed insecticide in her sponsor’s house in Naim-Jahra.

On July 16, a Filipino maid in her 30s was hospitalized for attempting to kill herself by overdosing on drugs. Three days later, on July 19, an Indonesian maid suffered several fractures after attempting to end her life by jumping off the third floor of her sponsor’s home in the Sabah Al-Nasser area. The next day, a 35-year-old Asian man was taken to the Mubarak al-Kabeer hospital after slashing his right hand in an attempt to kill himself. Three days later, of July 22, it was reported that a 34-year-old Sri Lankan housemaid killed herself by jumping from the third floor of her sponsor’s house in the Abdullah Mubarak area.

On July 24, a 23-year-old Nepalese domestic worker ended her life by hanging in her sponsor’s house in Oyoun, al-Jahra. On the next day, a 30-year-old Nepalese maid hanged herself to death from a ceiling-fan in her sponsor’s house in al-Jahra (report in Arabic contains disturbing photograph, beware). On July 29, an Asian man hanged himself to death from a ceiling fan in Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh. Once again, the report claims the victim suffered from psychological problems.

Reports about these miserable workers are pushed to the back pages of newspapers in Kuwait, and the Gulf region in general. The workers are nameless in their death as they are in their lives, with the papers not bothering to learn the name of the workers and sometimes even their age and nationality. Other than one report, no one in the Kuwaiti media tries to understand the reasons for this tragic phenomena. Reports suggest that the reason for suicides are psychological problems of the victims, without trying to understand what about the treatment of the sponsor leads these migrant workers to suicide en masse.

Domestic workers in Kuwait are excluded from the protection of its labor laws. A recent U.S. State Department report detailed the conditions many migrant workers are subjected to in Kuwait:

Although these migrants enter Kuwait voluntarily, upon arrival some are subjected to conditions of forced labor by their sponsors and labor agents, including through such practices as non-payment of wages, threats, physical or sexual abuse, and restrictions on movement, such as the withholding of passports. Labor recruitment agencies and their subagents at the community level in South Asia may coerce or defraud workers into accepting work in Kuwait that turns out to be exploitative and, in some instances, constitutes involuntary servitude.

Given this type of treatment, many workers see no choice out of their desperate situation other than taking their lives.

The first case was reported on July 26 by the paper Dar al-Hayat briefly recounted an incident where an “Asian” maid locked herself in her sponsor’s bathroom and slashed her wrists. Security forced burst through the locked door and found the maid with a razon by her side. The maid was taken from the sponsor’s home in Tabuk to the hospital. The second incident was reported by the paper al-Riyadh on July 29. A Sri-Lankan jumped off the fifth floor in a 7-floor building in Khobar. The maid survived the jump and was taken to the hospital by Saudi authorities.

As it is customary, the papers do not bother reporting basic details about the victims, including their names or ages.

Very few details were reported about either case, but from the information available it appears that on July 14th, a 35-year-old maid from Horowpathana, Sri-Lanka, set herself on fire in her employer’s home. She was rushed to the hospital in critical condition where she died on the next day from organ failure and severe burns. On July 25th, the Jordanian daily Al-Doustor reported that another Sri-Lankan maid attempted to kill herself in As-Salt, jumping from the third floor.

Jordan’s labor laws are considered very progressive for the region. Jordan is the only Arab country to include domestic workers under the scope of its labor laws. Employers are obligated to pay salaries directly to the workers’ bank accounts, buy health insurance for their workers and limit the working hours to ten per day. However, the law does not prohibit employers from confining workers to their household and confiscating passports. A 2009 study by the Labor Watch Project at the Phoenix Centre for Economic and Information Studies showed that enforcement of Jordan’s labor laws is lacking. In many cases workers were paid less than the minimum wage (150 JD, $211), overtime work was not compensated, employers prohibited the workers from leaving for annual leaves, and other workers reported of verbal and physical abuse.

Poor living and working conditions are often the cause of suicide by migrant workers. While Jordan’s progressive labor laws should be commended, a tighter enforcement of those laws may be able to save the lives of such workers who turn to suicide as a way out of their desperate situation.

(M-R.org and Mideast Youth Readers may be interested to know that this is the first year that the US itself has been assessed for the report. Its scores were high but by no means perfect).

Forced labour, restrictions on movement, physical and sexual abuse and exploitation by recruitment brokers have emerged as region-wide trends. Women who migrate to the Gulf States to work as domestic workers are at particular risk of being trafficked.

Here are some extracts from the report on some of the countries that M-R.org follows:

Bahrain

Bahrain is a destination country for men and women subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and prostitution. Men and women from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Ethiopia and Eritrea migrate voluntarily to Bahrain to work as domestic workers or unskilled laborers in the construction and service industries. Some, however, face conditions of forced labor after arriving in Bahrain, through use of such practices as unlawful withholding of passports, restrictions on movement, contract substitution, non-payment of wages, threats, and physical and sexual abuse.

Israel
“Israel is a destination country for men and women subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and forced prostitution. Low-skilled workers from Thailand, China, Nepal, the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka, and, to a lesser extent, Romania and Turkey, migrate voluntarily and legally to Israel for contract labor in construction, agriculture, and home health care provision. Some, however, subsequently face conditions of forced labor, including through such practices as the unlawful withholding of passports, restrictions on movement, inability to change or otherwise choose one’s employer, non-payment of wages, threats, and physical intimidation. Many labor recruitment agencies in source countries and in Israel require workers to pay recruitment fees typically ranging from $1,000 to $10,000, although Chinese workers often paid more than $20,000 – a practice making workers highly vulnerable to trafficking or debt bondage once in Israel. Traffickers are usually the migrant workers’ legal employers and the recruitment agents in both Israel and in the migrants’ home countries. Women from the former Soviet Union and China are subjected to forced prostitution in Israel, although the number of women affected has declined since the passage and implementation of Israel’s 2006 anti-trafficking bill. A small number of Israeli women are trafficked within the country for commercial sexual exploitation.”

Kuwait

“Kuwait is a destination country for men and women, some of whom are subsequently subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor. The majority of trafficking victims are from among the approximately 550,000 foreign women recruited for domestic service work in Kuwait. Men and women migrate from India, Egypt, Bangladesh, Syria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Nepal, Iran, Jordan, and Iraq to work in Kuwait, most of them in the domestic service, construction, and sanitation industries. Although these migrants enter Kuwait voluntarily, upon arrival some are subjected to conditions of forced labor by their sponsors and labor agents, including through such practices as non-payment of wages, threats, physical or sexual abuse, and restrictions on movement, such as the withholding of passports. Labor recruitment agencies and their subagents at the community level in South Asia may coerce or defraud workers into accepting work in Kuwait that turns out to be exploitative and, in some instances, constitutes involuntary servitude.
In some cases, arriving migrant workers have found the terms of employment in Kuwait are wholly different from those they agreed to in their home countries, making them vulnerable to human trafficking. As a result of such contract fraud, the Government of Indonesia in October 2009 banned further migration of domestic workers to Kuwait. Some 600 Indonesian domestic workers sought refuge in the Indonesian embassy in Kuwait in the last year; some of these domestic workers may have been victims of trafficking. Some of these workers arrive in the country to find their promised jobs do not exist. Many of the migrant workers arriving for work in Kuwait have paid exorbitant fees to recruiters in their home countries – a practice making workers highly vulnerable to forced labor once in Kuwait. Some unscrupulous Kuwaiti sponsors and recruiting agents prey on some of these migrants by charging them high amounts for residency visas, which foreign workers are supposed to receive for free. Adult female migrant workers are particularly vulnerable and consequently are often victims of nonconsensual commercial sexual exploitation and forced prostitution. Some domestic workers have fled from employers, and subsequently have been coerced into prostitution.”

Due to a fragile post-war economy, thousands of Sri Lankan women travel to the Middle East each year to find work as housemaids or cleaners in the hope that they will be able to send money back home.

There are roughly 1 million Sri Lankans employed overseas – roughly one person in every 19. Out of these an estimated 600,000 are employed as domestic workers.

Unfortunately Padma’s horrific story (below) is not an isolated case. According to the article, hundreds of workers return home each year with unpaid salaries and physical injuries. Some are caught up in human trafficking or prostitution. Some do not come home at all – suicides and ‘accidents’ claim the lives of many migrant workers in the Gulf.

Padma (name changed) left for Kuwait in February 2009 and was sent immediately to her employer’s home. There were twelve people in the family despite initially being told by the agency in Panadura that there were only five in that house.

Padhma, alone, was forced to cook heavy meals for the family and their friends and was always left without food.

Her Madam would purposely supervise her in the kitchen so that Padhma could not sneak a bite to ease her starving stomach. Padhma worked for over a month on little food and started searching for a way out when the beatings finally began. One day, as Padhma was left without food for nearly two days, she sneaked into the kitchen in desperation to search for something to eat. Her madam who caught her searching the kitchen cupboards, pulled her by the hair and lit the fire on the stove and held her face very close, threatening to burn her. Padhma screamed, begging her for forgiveness. However Padhma’s screams and tears were of no avail as her madam burnt part of Padhma’s beautiful face and then bashed her head to the wall several times till she finally collapsed.

Padhma regained consciousness an hour later only to be lying on the kitchen floor in pain. Her madam had walked in a few minutes later and screamed at Padhma to get up and prepare lunch or face a beating again.

Padhma worked in silence for days, enduring the severe beatings she received. Her several attempts to escape also failed and each time she got caught, she received severe blows.

However one day, Padhma, after gathering her belongings, escaped when the front gate was left opened and fled to the agency which had brought her to her employer’s home.

Luckily she had studied the roads in the six months she was employed at her ‘madam’s house’ when she went marketing with her daily. After days of torture, Padhma was glad to see Sri Lankans at the agency and urged them for medication and help. She begged them not to send her back.
Instead of helping her, the men at the agency, who were all Sri Lankans had only kicked Padhma in the stomach and told her she would be sold to a brothel if she did not go back to work. “They screamed at me and told me embarrassing things which cannot be mentioned. I was shocked to see Sri Lankans behaving in such a manner,” Padhma cried.

After being tortured in the agency for two weeks, Padhma finally returned back home,after almost seven months, after her brother sent Rs.65,000 cash to the agency. She returned home, devastated and in pain.

Chandrangani’s story is equally horrific; she was beaten and starved by her Kuwaiti employer, and was then subjected to yet more abuse the Sri Lankan recruitment brokers who had found her the job.

On May 5, an Ethiopian maid suffered severe injuries and fractures after jumping off the second floor from her sponsor’s house in the Abdullah Al-Mubarak area. On the next day, an unidentified security guard (a job generally performed by migrants) at an unknown university attempted suicide by slitting his right wrist. The man was taken to Amiri hospital for medical care. On May 8, a 23-year-old Ethiopian maid jumped out of her sponsor’s house on the second floor in Abu Hulaifa in an attempt to kill herself. The maid sustained several injuries and was taken to the hospital.

On May 14 three suicide attempts by migrant workers were recorded: an Egyptian men attempted to commit suicide by swallowing an unknown chemical. He was admitted to the Mubarak hospital in critical condition. Meanwhile, policemen in the Mubarak al-Kabeer area managed to stop a maid from committing suicide with a knife. On the same day a 25-year-old Filipino worker jumped off the second floor in her sponsor’s house in Fahaheel. The maid asked her sponsor to let her leave her job because she was mistreated by them and received a better job offer. However, the sponsor refused telling the maid that she knew that she’ll be working as a maid, and she should do her job without complaining. The night after the argument the maid left a suicide note and attempted to kill herself.

On May 19, a Nepalese maid (34) ended her life by hanging in her sponsor’s house in Umm Al-Haiman. On the same day, a 36-year-old domestic worker of unknown nationality attempted to kill herself by overdosing on drugs in her sponsor’s house in Rehab. On the next day, May 20, an 34-year-old Indian man committed suicide by hanging in his home in Old Khaitan. On the same day, an Indian woman (36) attempted suicide by setting herself on fire in Khaitan. On the next day, the Arab Times reported that a Sri-Lankan maid in her 40s suffered severe injuries and fractures after she jumped out of her employer’s home in an attempt to abscond. On the same day, a 36-year-old Indian man attempted to end his life by setting himself on fire in Sulaibiya. Still on that day an Asian maid was taken to the Jahra hospital after attempting suicide by setting herself on fire. Not a day later, on May 22, two maids ended their lives in Kuwait. A 30-year-old Indian maid hanged herself to death in her sponsor’s house in Adan, and a Nepalese housemaid committed suicide by hanging in her employer’s residence in Oyoun, Jahra. The next day, May 23, a Sri-Lankan woman (33) attempted suicide by slitting her wrists in her employer’s home in Mubarak al-Kabeer area.

On May 26, an Indian housemaid in her 30s suffered fractured after jumping from her sponsor’s house in Sabah Al-Salem. According to the newspaper report, she was attempting to abscond. On May 30, a Nepalese maid (24) slit her left wrist in her sponsor’s house in Rehab and was taken to the hospital. An Ethiopian man in his 30s hanged himself to death in a farm in Kabad on the same day.

As we’ve noted, domestic workers, the most vulnerable of migrant workers, are excluded from the protection of Kuwait labor laws. Kuwaiti papers, like most regional papers, mention suicides by workers in just a few sentences, never bothering to find out the names of the victims. The reports are hidden in the least-read pages and often hint that the cause of suicide was mental illness of the victim and not abuse she or he suffered at the hand of their sponsors.