In late December, a maid was found hanging in her sponsor’s home. In January, three migrants committed suicide. One maid hung herself inside her room. A man also hung himself in his room. Another maid poisoned herself by consuming insecticide. Suicide is often the last resort for abused migrants who feel they have no other escape.

On New Years Eve, a Kuwaiti woman was charged for beating her maid to death.

Police investigations for each case are still in progress.

Migrant abuse represents a perpetual pattern in Kuwait. Measures are sometimes taken against specific instances of abuse, but there are rarely any attempts to address the chronic mistreatment of migrants.

Efforts to release migrants from the death penalty generally follow the same pattern: the migrant’s government appeals to the victim’s family for forgiveness, which often involves a “blood money” payment. Saudi government policy is to stay executions only if the conditions of forgiveness are met. In keeping with the pattern, former Indonesian president BJ Habibie landed in Riyadh Saturday to negotiate with the victim’s family, as well as the Saudi government, for Tuti’s life. Prior to Habibie’s efforts, the current President sent a letter to the regime in October, pleading for her release.

Tuti’s situation reflects the overall failure of Saudi migrant policies. Since few laws exist to protect migrants – especially domestic workers who exist in the hidden sphere of the household – abusive conditions run virtually unrestrained, with no effective means of redress or punishment. Domestic workers must often cope with exploitation and mistreatment in order to avoid further abuse or the loss of employment opportunities, isolated and subject to psychological agony that compounds over time. Domestic workers are at great risk of protracted abuse, which can easily erupt into life-threatening situations for either migrants or their employers. Had an avenue been available for Tuti to redress abuse, the situation in March 2010 may never have come to fruition.

But Indonesia also carries much of the responsibility. Tuti is one of five Indonesian migrants on death row in Saudi Arabia, and part of the 32 worldwide. Migrant Care, Indonesia’s leading migrant rights NGO, accuses the Indonesian government of doing too little, too late. While Indonesia assigned a Migrant Worker’s Task Force to handle death sentences in Saudi, and claims to have saved and repatriated 44 migrants, Migrant Care asserts that the Task Force represents an ineffective “ad-hoc” fix rather than a long term solution. The Task Force addresses problems as they arise, rather than working to enforce permanent policies that would prevent legal abuses.

Migrant workers do commit crimes, and some are truly guilty. But Saudi’s legal system tends to treat migrants in an entirely unequal framework, often barring them form proper representation and even translating services. Consequently, migrants, guilty or not, are barred from the rights that all accused parties deserve. The absence of migrant rights in the judicial process inflates the number of the guilty, and can result in harsher, iniquitous punishments.

Migrant Care executive directory Anis Hidayah emphasizes the necessity of ratifying the International Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers, which will require Indonesia to institute legislation that establishes standards of migrant treatment in receiving nations. So far, Indonesia has shied away from permanent, long-term protective laws, instead pursuing indefinite bans that have historically had little lasting effect. Preventing abuse, minimizing the opportunity for exploitation, and ensuring evenhanded legal treatment would create a lawful environment favorable to both nations.

Pursuing a holistic understanding of the crime demonstrates the unnecessary burden these measures represent. The maid in question revealed that the family’s abuse motivated her to seek revenge against the young woman. Her mistreatment and abuse do not legitimize murder, but they provide the context in which the seemingly inconceivable events can be understood. Whether the family’s mistreatment inflicted psychological damage on the maid, or whether she felt suffocated because few options exist to redress employer abuse, are yet unknown. But to disregard the role of migrant mistreatment in this case perpetuates the dangerous tendency to systematically ignore abuse, which only fosters such unstable employer and employee relationships. The likelihood that any psychological damage occurred after the maid’s regular abuse is high, rendering evaluations before migrants are subjected to these working conditions superfluous and ineffective.

The brutal beheading of the young female is deplorable, but the community and wider government response must take care to avoid collectively punishing migrants for one woman’s actions. Additionally, the quick and extensive measures taken by authorities are extreme compared to the inaction observed in cases involving migrant deaths. The Kuwaiti government should enforce equal justice and the rule of law for all people, regardless of their citizenship, social status, or ethnicity.

The conception of maids as disposable units of labor sanctions their inhumane treatment. Murder itself may not be normalized, but the attitudes and “casual”abuses that escalate into such violent behavior do seem to be tolerated. The absence of legal protections for domestic workers positions them in an even more vulnerable position. The reports of violence towards domestic workers that resurface weekly demonstrate that this case involves much more than a single unscrupulous man; Just last week, a sponsor broke the nose of an Ethiopian maid. Three weeks earlier, an Indonesian maid committed suicide after absconding from an abusive employer.

The attention paid to these cases by Gulf media outlets is a significant step forward in
acknowledging and ultimately correcting human rights abuses. The more these stories are featured, the more that the apathy and the unintended tolerance of these crimes are overpowered – and eventually, the less horrifying stories there exist to be told.

Migrante-Middle East regional coordinator John Leonard Monterona said some of the distressed OFWs discretely managed to call him yesterday as they plead for their repatriation.

“I am expecting a call from the distressed OFWs after some of their kin in the Philippines called me last week also seeking assistance for their OFWs’ repatriation,” Monterona confirmed.

Monterona said most of the distressed OFWs were run away from their employers due to alleged abuses and labor malpractices by their employers.

“Most of them have been in FWRC for 2 to 3 months, while others for over 6 months,” Monterona calling the PH embassy to fast track the repatriation of the distressed OFWs.

Among the 30 distressed OFWs is OFW ‘Ruby’ (not her real name), who is only 19 years old, from Maguindanao.

OFW Ruby was deployed by a local agency in Manila on July 10, 2011 as a household service worker, but she only works for 10 days in her employer in UAE.

Monterona found out that the counterpart Abu Dhabi-based agency of the Manila-based recruitment agency transferred OFW Ruby to Al Ain to work for another employer.

“She was brought to Oman by her new employer, where she also ran away over alleged abuses and maltreatment,” Monterona added.

Monterona said: “Clearly, OFW Ruby was a victim of human smuggling. She is underage and should have not been deployed in the first place.”

Illegal recruitment, human smuggling still rampant

On Sunday, Monterona said his group continuously receiving, on a daily basis, an average of ten (10) cases of OFWs as victim of illegal recruitment and human smuggling.

“Our group monitoring of illegal recruitment cases in the Middle East revealed that an average of 10 OFWs were victim of illegal recruitment asking for assistance,” Monterona revealed.

Monterona citing POEA 2010 statistics, it handled 1,648 cases of illegal recruitment but it only acted and resolved 283, translated to 17.2% disposition rate; 1,365 cases were pending at end year of 2010.

“On 2004, only 12 persons were arrested and 6 recruitment agencies were closed, out of the 1,648 case of illegal recruitment handdled by the POEA,” Monterona noted.

Illegal recruitment cases disposition recorded by the POEA which was its highest rate recorded on 2004 with 44.5% or 650 cases have been acted out of 1,462 illegal recruitment cases.

“The low incidence of illegal recruitment and trafficking cases officially recorded by the government is due to the govt. agencies and labor offices abroad reluctance to pursue and provide support to OFWs to file cases against illegal recruiters,” Monterona added.

He observed that instead of providing support to the victims of illegal recruitment, labor officials are often cited by the victims discouraging them to file cases either in host country labor court or in the POEA or in the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC).

Monterona urges the Inter-Agency Committee against Trafficking (IACAT) headed by Vice President Jejomar Binay, also presidential adviser on OFWs concerns, to work hard in filling and pursuing cases against illegal recruiters and human traffickers.

Meanwhile, Monterona lauded the Supreme Court in upholding the Nov.29, 2005 life sentence verdict of the Zamboanga City Regional Trial on two human traffickers who had sent four women, including a minor, to work as prostitutes in Malaysia.

“We would like to see more illegal recruiters and human smugglers prosecuted and send behind bars, while we call on our fellow OFWs and would-be OFWs to be vigilant and report any illegal recruitment and human smuggling activities to the concerned authorities,” Monterona ended. # # #

Written by:

John Leonard Monterona

Migrante-Middle East regional coordinator

In a telephone interview with one detainee, a BBC reporter was bombarded with voices from other inmates, all begging for help to return to their native countries (read the full story here).

Hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankan women in particular migrate to the Middle East every year looking for work, often as domestic servants. The earnings they manage to send back to family and friends provide a major source of foreign revenue for the country.

However the life they find often does not provide the financial security they had hoped for, and too frequently puts their lives in the dangerous hands of abusive employers. Tales of physical and mental violence, imprisonment and slavery are all too common. Famously in August 2010, one Sri Lankan maid who had escaped from her Saudi employer was found to have around 24 nails in her body.

Caught between a rock and a hard place, Saudi law makes it impossible for these workers to leave their employer and legal “sponsor” without defaulting on their status as a legitimate migrant. Further, their efforts to return to their native countries are compounded by either the bureaucracy, or outright failure, of migrants’ native embassies and the Saudi authorities to address an increasingly worrying situation.

Kusuma Nandani has been an inmate of Olaya since 2009, when she was rescued from her employers after 15 years of involuntary servitude. Yet despite allegedly being granted an exit visa some time ago, she has not been sent home to Sri Lanka. She told the BBC, “I have no one in Sri Lanka. My parents are gone, my husband is trying to divorce me, I have only one daughter who doesn’t know who to approach to get help”.

The labour officer at the Sri Lankan embassy in Riyadh claimed the files of the Olaya detainees have been transferred to the Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau in Colombo, however attempts to contact them for further information have all failed.

Reform by either the Sri Lankan or Saudi authorities must be swift, to prevent an already desperate situation for many current and ex domestic workers from deteriorating.

Though the report was published in 2011, cases of of  abuse have been documented since at least 2007; inhabitable dormitories, 13-18 hour work days, unfair wages, physical mistreatment, and sexual exploitation all frequent the worker’s accusations. A Sri Lankan factory manager, Anil Santha, lies at the center of these abuses. Santha is accused of a range of misconduct including rape and withholding pay, a pattern of exploitation which he sustained by threatening to deport workers if they complained.  Though workers overcame the barrier of fear he constructed, the response of the authorities and upper management was less than effective;  after a factory wide strike in 2010, Anil was sent away only to resume terrorizing workers one month later. On June 18, Anil was arrested after an employee recounted her rape before a prosecutor. He was released only three days later. 

The Jordanian labor ministry’s failure to protect the rights of these workers is consistent with its wider migrant practices; for example, in 2007, Bangladeshi men were banned from working in Jordan after attempting to pursue their rights as prescribed under the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement. The ministry continues to fail to enforce the Free Trade Agreement’s labor clause.; Better Works Jordan, a monitoring group largely sponsored the by the U.S. government, has placed the factory on its “Golden List” of institutes in full compliances with labor laws for the past five years. Given that complaints have been registered against the factory for several years, workers accuse the ministry of taking bribes from the factory. The Jordanian government’s reactions discourage workers to report mistreatment, as they risk their lives and employment only be subjected to apathy and retaliatory abuse. 

As migrant workers’ voices are effectively silenced by ineffective ministries and oversight organizations, change must come from those in a position of power – most visibly,  the distributors who purchase Classic Factory’s clothing.  Retailers who source from the factory include Wal-mart, Hanes, and Macy’s. Though monitors are periodically sent to the factories, they only speak with workers selected and primed by the management. Students in Chicago have recognized the need for these brands to take a stronger stand against these inhumane and illegal conditions. The students distribute fliers near retailer stores to encourage consumers to pressure companies to comply with the law and end the chronic exploitation.  

Shweyga Mullah was working for Hannibal, Qaddafi’s son, and his wife, Aline. Aline Skaf is a Lebanese actress born in 1980 in Sebaal in Lebanon.

This is the report from CNN’s Dan Rivers, in Tripoli:

As we were about to leave, one of the staff told us there was a nanny who worked for Hannibal Gadhafi who might speak to us. He said she’d been burnt by Hannibal’s wife, Aline.

I thought he meant perhaps a cigarette stubbed out on her arm. Nothing prepared me for the moment I walked into the room to see Shweyga Mullah.

At first I thought she was wearing a hat and something over her face. Then the awful realization dawned that her entire scalp and face were covered in red wounds and scabs, a mosaic of injuries that rendered her face into a grotesque patchwork.

Even though the burns were inflicted three months ago, she was clearly still in considerable pain. But she told us her story calmly.

She’d been the nanny to Hannibal’s little son and daughter.

The 30-year-old came to Libya from her native Ethiopia a year ago. At first things seemed OK, but then six months into her employment she said she was burned by Aline.

Three months later the same thing happened again, this time much more seriously.

In soft tones, she explained how Aline lost her temper when her daughter wouldn’t stop crying and Mullah refused to beat the child.

“She took me to a bathroom. She tied my hands behind my back, and tied my feet. She taped my mouth, and she started pouring the boiling water on my head like this,” she said, imitating the vessel of scalding hot water being poured over her head.

She peeled back the garment draped carefully over her body. Her chest, torso and legs are all mottled with scars — some old, some still red, raw and weeping. As she spoke, clear liquid oozed from one nasty open wound on her head.

After one attack, “There were maggots coming out of my head, because she had hidden me, and no one had seen me,” Mullah said.

Eventually, a guard found her and took her to a hospital, where she received some treatment.

But when Aline Gadhafi found out about the kind actions of her co-worker, he was threatened with imprisonment, if he dared to help her again.

“When she did all this to me, for three days, she wouldn’t let me sleep,” Mullah said. “I stood outside in the cold, with no food. She would say to staff, ‘If anyone gives her food, I’ll do the same to you.’ I had no water — nothing.”

Her colleague, a man from Bangladesh who didn’t want to give his name, says he was also regularly beaten and slashed with knives. He corroborated Mullah’s account and says the family’s dogs were treated considerably better than the staff.

Mullah was forced to watch as the dogs ate and she was left to go hungry, he said.

Link to story

Migrant workers have been among the hidden victims of the Libyan conflict. We have heard reports of Subsaharan African migrants being targeted and even killed by rebels on suspicion of being mercenaries, and of international companies abandoning low-paid migrant workers to fend for themselves when the conflict broke out.

However, Shweygah’s case stands out because of the sheer cold-blooded brutality of one human being to another.

The article spoke of the story of Malagasy Abeline Baholiarisoa who spent 15 traumatic years of slave-like work under the Lebanese sponsorship system until she was able to go back home with 84 other women after her government chartered a plane to evacuate then early this year.

Abeline refers to her life in Lebanon as “a living hell” and described the eating and sleeping conditions and how they (in reference to herself and the other maid enslaved with her in the same house) did not even find the time to clean themselves.

Abeline, who agreed to come to Lebanon on the premises that (as the contract she signed dictated) she will be working as a nurse for a limited number of hours/day and for 800$/month for a 3 year contract found herself (like many others) instead working as a “maid” for 24 hours/ day and for less than 160/month. She used to pay her employer for the bits and pieces of food she ate.

The article also moved on to tackle “suicide” patterns and the constantly uninvestigated death cases. It then mentions stories of women who returned in coffins to Madagascar with missing organs. This was a very important eye opening report. If serious and tangible action on the ground is not going to be taken by government and people alike after this, I am not quite optimistic that any other time will inspire them to. If this does not move people enough, nothing else will.

When will Abelinea and other stop falling in those well-organized traps and when will we work on exposing the mafias behind this?