With employers frequently abusing their rights, a legal system that ensures them no protection and rights groups that aren’t , the situation of domestic migrant workers in Lebanon is very bleak.
“I have only six months left and then I will go back to the Congo,” says Angelique, speaking to IRIN from across the balcony […]
According to an article in the LA Times concerning modern slavery:
One hot june day in 2006, I saw what slavery really meant. In a rundown mansion in a slum of Bucharest, Romania, a pimp offered to sell me a young woman he described as “a blond.” She had bleached hair, hastily applied makeup, and she […]
Arab Times Reports………
Maid Attempts suicide
A 24 year old Indian Maid who tried in vain to end her life by cutting her wrist inside the bathroom of her sponsors home in Bneid Al Gar has been admitted to the Amiri Hospital, reports Alam Al Yawm daily.
A case of attempted suicide has been registered against the woman. […]
Zeina Karam recently reports the following incident from Beirut:
BEFORE she escaped, Chandra worked 16 hours a day, seven days a week, cooking, cleaning and running a household for a family of six in Lebanon. The only time the Sri Lankan maid was allowed to leave the home was to throw out the rubbish. If she […]
BBC reports:
Gulf states are failing to curb serious abuses of Sri Lankan migrant workers employed as maids in their countries, a Human Rights Watch report has said.
The US-based group says abuse of maids is rampant in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Lebanon.
Employers routinely confiscate domestic workers’ passports and confine them to the […]
According to Arab News, a middle-aged Filipino woman was beaten up because she refused to be a maid/slave:
Officials at the Philippine Consulate General in Jeddah yesterday said Myrna Salvador was admitted to Dr. Baksh Hospital in the Mina district of the city after suffering a fractured spine and hip. She was brought to the […]
From a report this morning on Gulf News:
Riyadh: An Indonesian housemaid is in serious condition following amputation of both her hands and feet after a month-long torture by her employers, said a member of the Saudi National Society for Human Rights.
Dr Nora Al Jumaih, member of the monitoring and follow-up committee at the Saudi National […]
“I still cannot believe that I am out of this ordeal that I have undergone for the past 10 years,” said Anista Marie, 40, who since 1999 hasn’t received her salary. Marie called up Arab News a little over 3 weeks ago saying she has been imprisoned and abused in the home of her sponsor […]
The Arab News service reports yet another horrific story from Saudi Arabia this morning:
JEDDAH, 6 August 2007 — Two Indonesian maids were beaten to death and two others remain in the intensive care unit at a Riyadh hospital in an assault authorities believe was committed by the son of the maids’ employer. The 17-year-old suspect […]
Thousands of Asian women leave their homes each year to seek better jobs abroad as domestic workers.
Many of them are treated well, but some – subjected to physical and mental abuse – endure a living hell.
Most who venture abroad as domestic workers come from Indonesia and the Philippines, with Indonesia alone recording 2.5m workers, some […]