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.

The extensive 26-page report surveyed the conditions of domestic workers in Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and Bahrain (as well as Malaysia and Singapore). The report remarked that the conditions of migrant domestic workers are gradually, albeit slowly, improving. However, domestic workers are still extremely vulnerable and under-protected in the Middle East.

The report details how migrant domestic workers can be subjected to exploitation by several actors, starting from recruitment agencies in their own countries and up to policemen in their country of destination if the approach to report abuse. As the report states “the failure to properly regulate paid domestic work facilitates egregious abuse and exploitation, and means domestic workers who encounter such abuse have few or no means for seeking redress.”

The vulnerability begins at home, where recruitment agencies often provide false information to migrant workers about their future conditions and pay. Those agencies usually demand a high fee for securing the work visa, forcing the future workers to go into debt. The burden of debt to the agency makes the domestic worker fearful about reporting abuse and possibly losing their job and being unable to repay the “loan” to the agency. Once a worker arrives to his county of destination, recruitment agencies sometimes substitute the contracts the woman signed back home with a new contract with poorer conditions. We have covered a case of such worker, Grace from the Philippines. She was promised a job in Qatar as an executive secretary for 700 QAR per month, but upon arrival she was informed that she’ll be taking care of a child, with no days off and for 600 QAR ($165) per month.

Domestic workers in the surveyed countries require a local sponsor, to whom their work visa is tied. The sponsorship creates dependency and vulnerability and makes exploitation much more likely. As the report remarked “As the immigration sponsor, the employer can typically have the domestic worker repatriated at will, provide or withhold consent on whether she can change jobs, and in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, obstruct her ability to leave the country. In practice, termination of employment often means the worker is obliged to leave the country immediately with no opportunity to seek redress for abuses or settlement of unpaid wages… Migrant domestic workers who leave their employment without their employer’s consent lose their legal status, making them subject to immigration penalties and deportation.”

We’ve previously reported how an unpaid Indian worker (read: slave) resorted to hiding in an airplane bathroom to be able to return home, after his abusive employer wouldn’t return his passport and give him permission to leave. Other employers, once their domestic workers muster up the courage to report the abuse, often counter-accuse the worker of committing crimes like theft of running away, and the police sometimes takes their side. We previously reported about a Sri Lankan maid who ended up in a Jordanian hospital after her employer beat her. When she complained, the employer accused the maid of theft and child abuse and the maid was arrested while still recovering from her injuries.

The invisibility of domestic workers in the homes of their sponsors to the outside world creates an increased risk of abuse, sexual harassment, food deprivation, and forced confinement. “In the worst cases, domestic workers may become trapped in situations of forced labor, trafficking, or slavery, or they die from murder, botched escape attempts, or suicide”, the report states. As we’ve documented, the high numbers of domestic workers taking their lives in Lebanon, Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia is extremely worrisome and attests to the poor living and working conditions those housemaids have to endure.

The justice system in most Middle Eastern countries discriminates against migrant workers. As the report remarked, “Human Rights Watch has documented patterns in which the combination of poorly conducted investigations, lengthy trials, and weak enforcement of judgments combine to pressure victims of violence into accepting small financial settlements, a return ticket home, or nothing at all.” Last year we mentioned the case of an abused Sri Lankan maid who ran away from her Bahraini sponsor and approached the police, only to be returned to him. We also reported about the case of an Indian maid who was severely abused by her Bahraini sponsor who returned to India five months after the case was filed, and yet no charges was brought against her abusive sponsors.

Labor and Immigration Reforms

The report discusses the positive reforms in the labor and immigration laws made by regional governments. Unfortunately, other than in Jordan, regional governments do not include domestic workers under the protection of its labor laws. Other regional governments, like the UAE and Lebanon, introduced the standard employment contract, which regulates the domestic worker’s wages, but “falls short of providing the comprehensive protections provided under national labor laws”, the report noted. The contracts, which are also in use of private recruitment agencies in Saudi Arabia, do not give housemaids a weekly day off, it does not limit their working hours, and permits employers to forcibly keep their maids indoors. The reformed laws in Jordan still allows employers to hold their domestic worker’s passport and prohibit them from leaving the house, even on rest days. Changes in the sponsorship system in Kuwait and Bahrain excluded domestic workers.

Exposure to Racism and Sexism

The report notes that “Government officials, employers, and recruitment agents often make arguments against reform that reveal deep racial and gender stereotypes about migrant women and men, and the insecurities of wealthy elites that may feel physically and culturally threatened by large migrant populations but are also deeply dependent on them.” As we’ve shown, media reports in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE portray domestic workers as abusive sneaky witches, lazy liars and criminals. In addition to this “A second set of tensions around immigration reform center on sexual stereotypes and fears. Employers commonly describe their fear of migrant men or express stereotypes of migrant women as either sexually loose or as innocent and naïve in order to justify their practices of confining migrant domestic workers to the home and prohibiting them from taking a day off”, the report states.

The Human Rights Watch report paints a bleak picture about the rights of migrant domestic workers in the region. Despite the reforms, there is still a long way to go before domestic workers can arrive to the Middle East without fear of being abused, exploited, discriminated against and ignored by authorities.

Foreign housemaids suffer harassment and abuse
Amman – Al-Dustur Newspaper – Fares Al-Habashneh

13 February, 2010

Foreign housemaids in Jordan are slowly but surely beginning to raise their voices to concerned authorities to reveal what they undergo from violation of rights, harassment and physical and moral abuse.

Many housemaids are treated well by their employers, while others undergo inhumane treatments that cause them mental, physical and moral harm, which leads some of them to consider running away from these homes or turn to their embassies, and others to commit suicide by throwing themselves from the windows of the homes of their employers or attempt to drink toxic substances or hang themselves to end their suffering.

One of the Asian housemaids aged 22 years old, who arrived to Jordan in 2009, finally gathered her courage to file a complaint against her employers who she claimed to have beaten her. She states that she suffered hunger, and during the first two months on the job, her employer used to give her only a piece of bread daily and sometimes bits and pieces of leftovers. The brunette who headed to the embassy remembers her employer telling her “you are fat and you should not eat a lot.”

Housemaids who turn to their embassies remain there until their cases are solved with their sponsors or the offices that represent them, and then they are either sent back home or their situations are handled and they are sent back to their workplace.

Tamkeen (empowerment) Center for Legal Aid, which is a nongovernmental rights organization that defends migrant workers, declares receiving about 230 complaints last year filed by housemaids who were exposed to various types of violations and abuse. According to the head of the center, Linda Kilsh, 15 cases were directed to the judiciary, whereby 14 decisions concerning these cases were issued in favor of the housemaids, while other complaints were solved through a peaceful settlement with sponsors and the rest through a settlement with concerned parties.

Kilsh points out that the majority of maids who turned to the center were running away from the homes of their employers. She revealed that the complaints that were filed varied from exposure to beatings and forced labor and the confiscation of the maids’ passports.

The National Center for Human Rights receives complaints and solves them with concerned parties without turning to the courts. The said center states receiving about 500 complaints last year from runaways who had been exposed to beatings, physical abuse and the confiscation of their passports, and this is considered the highest percentage of complaints according to the center’s statistics. Kilsh believes that including housemaids under the umbrella of the Labor Law in accordance with the latest amendments to it builds protection for these maids and legally guarantees their salary, the necessity of paying this salary entirely in accordance with the contract signed between the sponsor and the maid, providing them with annual and monthly leaves, as well as other rights that protect these maids from undergoing any violations. She also points out that the issue of maids’ rights is gradually becoming more clear, but many of them do not have the courage to file complaints either because they are afraid or because they do not have legal documents. Furthermore, the majority of housemaids who file complaints to the center are runaways from the homes of their employers, because obstacles prevent them from filing complaints while they are living in the homes of their employers.

Those concerned with labor rights see that guarantees provided by the law are insufficient considering the absence of an instrument that monitors their application. Attorney Muhammad Al-Atrash states that the legal rights are clear, but the issue in question is how a maid can obtain her rights to approach concerned authorities and file a complaint when she is exposed to violation and abuse inside the home of her employer or by other concerned individuals. Al-Atrash believes that the adoption of an integrated work contract in conformity with national legislations might contribute to solving the cases of housemaids, limiting violations and abuses they are exposed to, and defining the responsibility of those who file complaints.

Experts state the necessity of issuing a legislation that guarantees the inspection of maids within the homes of their employers and conforming their working circumstances with national standards of work environments. These experts stress the necessity of this legislation due to the increase of suicide cases among housemaids, especially in cases where they throw themselves from high stories.

During the past few months, the Directorate of Public Security recorded about 18 suicide attempts among housemaids living in the homes of their employers and others in places where housemaids are gathered to be put on the market for work. According to Al-Atrash, the exploitation of housemaids, which sometimes leads to their abuse, leads a worrying number of them to commit suicide.

The Jordanian police spokesman Mohammad Khatib said that “police recovered the bodies of two young women of Asian appearance from a public waste bin in the Jubeiha district, north of Amman, on Friday.” The bodies of the women, whose identity and nationality is unclear, were found in plastic bags. Initial investigation suggests that the women were strangled to death. The women were probably working as maids.

In September of 2009, Jordan included migrant workers under the protection of its labor laws, but abuse of migrant workers is still rampant. In July 2009 Indonesia pulled out its workers from the country and a fact-finding mission from the Philippine parliament, which visited Amman in November, recommended to institute a ban on sending maids to the Middle East.

According to AFP:

Some 70,000 migrant labourers work as domestic servants in Jordan, the great majority of them women.

Some 30,000 come from Indonesia, 15,000 from the Philippines and 25,000 from Sri Lanka, according to labour ministry figures.

According to reporter Hani Hazaimeh, Ishara Hemanthi was jailed soon after a beating by her employer resulted in hospitalization. She was detained at the Jweideh Correctional and Rehabilitation Centre after the employer filed a lawsuit accusing her of sexually abusing their seven-year-old daughter, according to the embassy’s lawyer Motasem Yassin. According to the report, Hemanthi’s employer also lodged another complaint with the authorities, accusing her of stealing JD1,000, a diamond ring and two gold rings.

The report said: “The North Amman First Instance Court judge interrogated the 23-year-old Sri Lankan in connection with the theft case, but let her go for lack of evidence, after which she was sent back to the Family Protection Department (FPD), Yassin told The Jordan Times yesterday, adding that his client was sent to the Criminal Court to be interrogated in the sexual abuse case.”

“The interrogation was conducted without a translator, although the prosecutor knew that the defendant could not speak or understand Arabic, and without the presence of any representatives from the embassy,” Yassin said, adding that the prosecutor ordered that Hemanthi be detained for 14 days.

Despite the fact that the domestic helper filed a complaint against her employer with the authorities, her lawyer said the employer was never arrested or questioned by the police.

“Although Hemanthi has a medical report stating that she was subject to severe beatings and had bruises all over her body, the police did not issue an arrest warrant against her employer,” Yassin noted.

Read the full article here.

In Kuwait, the report focused on the Sponsorship system and lack of protection for domestic workers under Kuwaiti law. The law does not allow workers to leave their sponsor without his consent, even in cases of abuse. There is also the absence of a clear mechanism by which workers can claim unpaid wages, and they are thus forced to settle for deals brokered by their embassies.

In Saudi Arabia, migrant workers continue to be exposed to labor rights violations and persecution on spurious charges such as sorcery, adultery and theft. The need of migrant workers to secure an exit permit from the kingdom results in many cases of forced labor, according to HRW. The reforms in Saudi Arabia’s labor laws in July 2009 offer insufficient protection for migrant workers and leave them vulnerable to abuse.

In Lebanon, 2009 ended with a wave of suicides of domestic workers. The Sponsorship system under which migrant workers are employed in Lebanon limits their ability to turn to the courts in Lebanon in search of compensation and justice. In January 2009 the Lebanese government introduced the standard employment contract, which is supposed to guarantee certain rights to domestic workers. While this is a welcomed development, the lack of an enforcement mechanism makes this step insufficient to guarantee the rights of domestic workers.

In Jordan, the Ministry of Labor issued a regulation in September 2009 that included migrant workers under the protection of Jordan’s labor laws. However, HRW notes that this regulation still allows employers to prevent domestic workers from leaving the residence, even after working hours.

In the UAE, workers continue to be vulnerable to exploitation and abuse under the Sponsorship system. Migrant workers pay recruitment fees and forced to sign contracts with conditions much worse than the ones promised to them, against UAE laws, which are not enforced. Employers usually confiscate passports of their workers, thus limiting their ability to seek help from UAE authorities against sponsors and recruitment agencies that exploit them.

Egyptian border guards have killed at least 17 migrants since May 2009 who have attempted to cross to Israel. The killing of unarmed migrants that posed no threat to the guards is a clear violation of international law. In Egypt, migrants, asylum seekers and recognized refugees face mistreatment, jail terms and forced refoulement, despite the danger those migrants often face in their countries of origin.

Israel, in forcibly returning those migrants to Egypt, is complicit to Egyptian violations of international law. Israeli policy doesn’t allow migrants to present asylum claims or meet representatives of the UNHCR.

Overall, this report paints a bleak picture about the state of migrant workers’ rights in the region. The sponsorship system which governs most worker-employer relations in the region is preventing foreign workers from realizing their rights. Several countries have reformed their labor laws this year, but enforcement is still lacking. Let us hope that in 2010 we will be able to report about further and more far-reaching improvements in migrant workers’ rights in the region.

Labor Migrants
Nazih Elqusus
5 December, 2009

Labor migrants in Jordan are divided into two categories: the first being Arab laborers who come from Egypt and Syria and most of them work in the fields of construction and agriculture, and the second is the maids coming from southeast Asia to work in homes or practice other professions in nursing, work in restaurants, etc.

The first category of labor migrants has been very useful to us, and no one can deny giving them credit because they are the ones who contributed to the construction of hundreds of residential and commercial buildings as well as hotels. They also worked in agriculture and herding in various areas around Jordan, and without them, we do not know how to function due to the scarcity of Jordanian laborers or due to the fact that some Jordanian youth refrain from working in the construction or agriculture sectors.

The second category on the other hand, are housemaids who have worked in the homes of Jordanians, and some of them are considered to be the heads of the household because they raise the children, clean the house and cook the food, and without them, a large percentage of Jordanian women would not have been able to work because they have children in need of care.

These two categories of labor migrants have contributed so much to our country and we should never deny that. Up until this moment, we are still in dire need of their services, and for that reason, we should respect them and never mistreat them, as some of us do.

We heard a lot about some maids who are subjected to maltreatment by some families to the point of brutal torture and deprivation of food, drink and clothing. We heard a lot about suicide cases among some maids and these suicides did not occur out of nowhere, but rather resulted from a never-ending cycle of mental depression inflicted by families. We also heard a lot about maids who flee the homes of their employers and most of them runaway because they lack a sense of mental comfort or well-being. The maid who leaves her family, husband and children behind and crosses thousands of kilometers in search of work is in need of some of our care and kindness and not the torture, deprivation and oppression inflicted by some of us.

Furthermore, labor migrants who stood by us and by our country are also in need of some care and respect. They need to feel their self-worth and humanity, for they leave their families, wives, children and loved ones behind, and for that reason we should treat them with utmost humanity, which is what our religion, morals and traditions require from us. And the Ministry of Labor should not come up with a new law or regulation every day that shakes the comfort of these laborers.

Some suggest that we meet once a year to honor these migrant laborers and housemaids and that this commemoration takes place on a national level to acknowledge their work and express our appreciation towards the indispensable services they provide us.

The mission was sent following a rise in reports about cases of abuse of Filipino workers in the region. The delegation met with runaway overseas Filipoino workers (OFW) who reported about cases of physical and sexual abuse, withholding of passports, and difficulties to escape the abusive employers. The workers the delegation met were all awaiting deportation while staying in shelters at Philippine consulates and embassies. Currently there are around 500 OFWs awaiting deportation across the region. Many of them were unable to return home because their employer held their passport, and sometimes even pressed fictitious charges against them.

Every domestic worker the delegation met in the five cities they visited urged them to institute a ban on sending domestic workers to the Middle East.

Representative Luzviminda Ilagan told Khaleej Times that the team was overwhelmed by the magnitude of problems faced by the domestic workers, and that “they are treated as modern-day slaves”.