The often extralegal existence of domestic workers, the prioritization of Saudi employers, and the correspondingly ad-hoc legal verdicts, are particularly pronounced characteristics of this case. Nafeek has been awaiting an official response to her request for clemency since 2007. In November, Sri Lankan officials traveled to Saudi Arabia to ask Rafeek’s former employers for forgiveness in accordance with Saudi’s pardoning laws. But allegedly false accounts of the delegation’s work made by a Sri Lankan parliament member may have Jeopardized Nafeek’s prospects. Shaik Faisal al Otaibi, leader of the Othibi tribe to which Nafeek’s former employers belong, threatened Nafeek’s case will be impacted by the MP’s suggestion that the Othibi tribe has more than one leader. Furthermore, Otaibi claims the Sri Lankan delegation lied about the current circumstances of Nafeeks case, as neither the tribe nor the Saudi government has indicated Nafeek will be released. The leader, who was appointed by King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, is demanding an apology.

Saudi Arabia’s legal policy towards migrants is volatile to the detriment of these workers, as well as to the groups and governments working on their behalf. However, if Otaibi’s claims are true, the Sri Lankan government must also accept responsibility; whether the delegation truly deceived the Sri Lankan parliament and public, or whether the delegation clumsily mishandled their assignment, the government did not act with the swift resolution that Nafeek so desperately needs. Faith in the Sri Lankan government’s mission has been meager since its outset.

Rizana’s situation reflects the wider relationship existing between Saudi Arabia and migrant-exporting nations, in which migrant-exporters often approach legal cases and permanent policy change with timidity in fear of disrupting the important economic bond. Otaibi’s suggestion that the “false words” of the MP will ruin both Rizana’s case and the Saudi-Sri Lanka relationship demonstrates the convoluted, exponentially weaker position of migrant workers fated to the Saudi legal system.

Lebanon witnessed two cases of suicide last week alone. The blog Ethiopian Suicides catalogs many Ethiopian deaths in Lebanon as the country possesses a large Ethiopian population, as well as a dismal record of migrant rights. Both cases involved a Lebanese domestic worker hanging herself in an employer’s home – almost certainly the source of their misery.

Another Ethiopian woman hung herself in her sponsor’s home in Saudi Arabia, where paltry workers rights and neglected conditions also have a history of pushing maids to commit suicide. Police are investigating the incident according to routine procedure, though the causes of suicide are generally standard themselves – as are the effectively nonexistent punishment for abusive employers.

In Kuwait, where disregard for the plight of domestic workers appears normalized, a woman unsuccessfully attempted to overdose with items from employer’s house. Police investigations have again commenced to determine the woman’s motivation – as if the reasons for her agony could be separated from the life that sponsors almost entirely dictate and create. Another domestic worker attempted to commit suicide in her sponsor’s home as well, but was ‘thwarted’ by police, who then proceeded to interrogate her.

These suicides and suicide attempts come amidst promises for substantive legal change made by many countries; Kuwait agreed to increase the minimum wage for domestic workers, Saudi has promised more protections for its workers, and Lebanon’s minister announced the Kafala system’s forthcoming abolishment. Whether these agreements affect the lives of domestic workers and mitigate the conditions that preempt suicide – or whether they are lost into abyss of broken treaties and pacts – will, at least tangentially, be measured by this year’s suicide rate.

Originally posted on the Lebanese blog Ethiopian Suicides.

This news came just one day before the Guardian published a report about Lila, a Nepalese who was trafficked into slavery and committed suicide in Lebanon.

Originally posted on Ethiopian Suicides.

After months of negotiation, Saudi assented to these demands in an accord signed in Manilla. The agreement stipulated a minimum wage of $400//month, a weekly day off, holiday time totaling thirty days, and a free ticket for migrants to return to their home country. The accord also targets several of the most prevalent abuses, rendering it illegal to withhold maids’ passports, to treat them poorly, or to force them to work in multiple households.

While legal protections for domestic workers is a significant achievement in the Gulf region, the effect of the agreement cannot be determined until Saudi’s commitments are ratified in legislation and mechanisms of enforcement are implemented.

The article is written from the perspective of a Saudi employer who, after years of consciously avoiding the entanglement of profiteering and corruption that characterizes the foreign domestic service market, finally gives in to temptation and initiates his quest for a foreign maid. The introduction gives the impression that the author is primarily concerned with contributing to an enterprise indifferent to the exploitative conditions it begets. But when speaking of corruption and exploitation, the author almost exclusively refers to the victimization of Saudi employers.

He explains his own encounters as well as those of others. For his part, he claims to have been blackmailed by the employment office. He expresses his outrage that such a crime could happen under the watchful eye of the relevant embassies – the embassies that largely fail to regulate these same agencies even with the well-being of their own citizens at risk. He continues with anecdotes from his acquaintances, from news articles (we must assume), and hearsay from the grapevine; this includes nefarious scheming on the part of maids, who cooperate with agencies in pretending to be experienced with housework, and to be “good” for three months – the period an employment agency remains legally responsible for her work. It is presented as wholly conceivable that a maid could “pretend” to be experienced for three entire months without her employer realizing she is unskilled at ironing, washing dishes, etc. He describes a semi-theoretical, generalized trajectory of a maid’s behavior: She is swell and docile for three to four months, fulfilling all of her obligations (even though in truth she does not possesses the applicable skills and is in fact hoodwinking her employer), and then she suddenly undergoes a tremendous change – she’s rude, she can no longer cook, she can no longer launder – she may even abscond.

The author does admit that both the rights of maids and Saudi employers are violated by employment agency tactics. There is certainly truth to this statement, as agencies are notorious for their largely unregulated behavior. Saudi employers do have the right to be upset when they are swindled out of their own money. However, the suggestion of a large-scale conspiracy between migrant workers and these agencies is unbelievable and dangerous; the notion that the average maid would want to abscond from steady employment in a non-abusive household to return home, after the extraordinarily arduous process of immigration, where the prospect of employment is significantly lower – all for for a one time-sum, is difficult to fathom. The author also recounts the story of a friend whose maid absconded, but was later found working in the employment agency’s office. Certainly possible in one instance – but absolutely implausible as the systematic practice the author suggests. Similarly, the author’s other notion that thieving migrants abscond after their three month commitment only to obtain new passports and work permits to continue bamboozling Suadis nationwide is preposterous given that the legitimate documentation process is difficult enough, not to mention the severe penalties illegal migrants, as well as absconding migrants, face.

Perhaps the article is not devious in its intention, but its effect is to support the misperception of foreign domestic workers in the Gulf. Such pieces encourage suspicion towards maids, exacerbating the already tense relationship that exists between so many migrants and their sponsors. Furthermore, it designates migrants as the principal problem while relegating the stories of abuse, slavery, and exploitation to mere stereotypes used to hide the somehow more perturbing manipulation of Gulf employers. It overshadows the darker experiences of domestic workers, who are subject to the invisible sphere of the home and often excluded from labor legislation, with a narrative that centers on economics – rather than human rights.

While migrant workers are not the only victims in the foreign domestic service complex, they are the most seriously affected. This article only adds to the myriad of irresponsible pieces that trivialize migrant abuse in the Gulf.

No additional information was given. The last recorded death of an Ethiopian domestic worker in Lebanon was on November 16, 2011, presumably a suicide.

Some columns repeatedly fixate on maids’ sexual affairs, some of which violate employer contracts but are not so extraordinary that they require constant spotlight. The Gulf’s conservative society may in part explain the high frequency of such reports, but the pieces often highlight the hidden, unsanctioned nature of these exploits as the source of contention. Sexual activity may be one of the few acts maids attempt to pursue without the approval of employers, some of whom refuse to acknowledge the existence of domestic workers beyond their “utility.”

Other features actively promote the suspicion of domestic workers; the recent piece “Five signs to spot a maid about to abscond” criminalizes any act falling outside the employer’s omnipotent control. Repeated declarations of such approaches to foreign employees not only normalize but endorse “domestic dictatorships.” The failure of this particular article to mention the root cause behind absconding – the motivation for an individual who has traveled thousands of miles and overcome invasive bureaucratic obstacles to leave their only legal job – is an inconspicuous oversight. MideastYouth has published a spoof of the article that begins with satire and concludes with the sobering reality facing the Gulf’s domestic workers.

The most distorted articles report violence committed by maids with little, if any, mention of the conditions empowering a maid to undertake such measures in a legal system that routinely discriminates against foreign workers. Some domestic workers do commit crimes. But the tone, content, and frequency of these articles do not approach crime as isolated offenses committed by individuals, but as a pattern of behavior that results from maids in particular. Yet discordantly, they exclude the one link that may in fact connect these crimes – the regular abuse and mistreatment of domestic workers by both their sponsors and society at large. Instead, esoteric warnings cast maids as devious and untrustworthy. The overwhelming rush of articles recently published without reference to employer abuse – which overtime, can psychologically trigger violent reactions – depict maids as savagely unpredictable. Failing to contextualize these reactions, and consequently refusing to acknowledge the conceptual and legal changes that must occur relative to employers and the nation at large, endures the asymmetrical cycle of violence.

It is, however, telling that almost every instance of a maid’s misconduct is reported, while employer abuse only frequents headlines sporadically. Perhaps the daily accounts of employer abuse are recognized as the norm, while maids retaliating against abuse comprise an oddity that begs a headline feature. But the average person who comes across several reports of maid instigated violence – with scant allusion to employer violence – is unlikely to realize the wider storyline. The media cannot be reproached for reporting crimes, but they can be faulted for failing to put them into perspective.

The kafala or sponsorship system in the Gulf should be abolished, this is an absolute prerequisite for the full personhood and humanization of domestic workers. The Philippine government’s new standards for overseas domestic workers and tentative bans on 41 non-compliant host countries are praiseworthy but far from promising–it is highly doubtful that this cosmetically laudable “concrete plan” will make it far off of the pages of the government’s issuance.

The Philippines is a toothless government with no political clout. What leverage does a country that has sold every national possession from citizens to soil and depends on the continued internationally homelessness of its population to stay afloat financially? In the region, the Philippines’ only competition in terms of development is Burma. The country’s former colonial master, the United States, owns the Philippine military. Without the remittances from migrant workers, which now account for 11% of the GDP, the Philippine economy would crumble. Remittances raise foreign exchange reserves and allow for private consumption, which represents more than three-quarters of the country’s GDP.

Let’s put the news in perspective: domestic workers working within the Philippines do not receive benefits that are now being demanded by the Philippines from host countries although, contrary to popular belief, there exists specific legislation outlining the rights of kasambahay (the local term for household laborers which has a tellingly feudal etymology). The minimum wage for domestic workers, as stipulated by the Philippine Labor Code, is Php 800 (less than $19) per month. The Department of Labor and Employment plans to raise the compensation for domestic workers to Php 1,500 through a new bill is in the works; however, according to the same government agency, the cost of living PER DAY in urban areas for a family of four exceeds Php 800. Due to the absence of reproductive health legislation, most Filipino women live in fear of pregnancy and the average family size in the Philippines is between five and six members. Half of all Filipino families live in cities because livelihood opportunities in rural regions are scarce.

Today the Philippine government announced that it has blacklisted 41 countries that do not have bilateral agreements with the Philippines or domestic legislation that protect the labor rights of migrant workers and has already nullified several murky contracts for workers slated to exit the country. Before a round of applause, what is the Philippine government doing to provide adequate jobs or alternatives here for the desperate Filipinas whose last resort (risky, underpaid labor in the Middle East or elsewhere) has been effectively squashed?

By the numbers, almost all domestic workers are women who cannot find work in their own countries. How can a government whose own Senate President upholds the patriarchal notion that only men are fit for the public sphere and work outside of the home, claim to stand for the development of women as a productive force? If employment for women is not fully re/addressed on the home front, than any attempt to ameliorate the situation of Filipinas will be ineffectual and cosmetic.

Like a clogged roadway, economic refugees fighting for basic survival and those who exploit them, will find alternative routes to maintain a cash flow. As a result of the stoppage of workers, conditions may likely get worse for those already employed within the UAE.

The Philippine government’s ruling sounds hopeful and is technically “progress” but in reality is a vacuous demand and will remain unheeded unless and until UAE is externally strong-armed or internally motivated to adopt the guidelines for domestic workers.