A three-member delegation of the Philippine House Committee on Workers Affairs visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan during October and found egregious violations of migrant rights in all three countries.
The mission was sent following a rise in reports about cases of abuse of Filipino workers in…
Archive for the ‘Slavery’ Category
Philippine Fact-Finding Mission Calls for a Ban on Sending Maids to the Middle East
November 30th, 2009
Abusive employers Housemaids Jordan Saudi Arabia Slavery UAE
Indonesian Sex Slave in Saudi Arabia Shares her Harrowing Tale
November 28th, 2009
Abusive employers Housemaids Rape Saudi Arabia Slavery Trafficking
CNN carried a report last week about a former Indonesian sex slave in Saudi Arabia. At the age of 17 the woman was promised a job as a maid in Saudi Arabia by an Indonesian recruitment agency. Coming from a poor family, she was happy to be selected for the job out of hundreds of other women. The emp...
Two Indian Maids Held Hostage by their Abusive Saudi Sponsor
November 22nd, 2009
Abusive employers Housemaids Saudi Arabia Slavery Sponsorship
The Saudi daily Arab Times published a story today about a sponsor who is preventing his two maids from returning to India until they pay him. Upon arrival to the Kingdom, the maids (whose real names aren't given), discovered that their sponsor had made a deal with a recruitment agency to...
Photographs of the horrible living conditions of migrant workers in Kuwait
November 8th, 2009
Kuwait Slavery Working conditions
These photos are to show the abuse, forced labor and human rights violations that are happening in Kuwait in the year 2009. Can you imagine slavery and forced labor camps in the year 2009? The Arabic word for Slave is abd. This is the title that the workers are called in Arabic. They are living in h...
The Horrid Conditions of Nepalese Maids in Saudi Arabia
October 6th, 2009
Abusive employers Housemaids Prison Rape Saudi Arabia Slavery
The New Nation, a Bangladeshi papers, recently published a story about the conditions of Nepalese housemaids in the Gulf. The article features the stories of two women who worked in Saudi Arabia as maids. Because of reports of inhuman treatment of maids in the Gulf, in 1998 the Nepalese government i...
ILO Report: Exploitation Costs Migrants $21 bn a Year
May 13th, 2009
Corrupt recruitment practices cheat migrant workers out of $21 billion each year, according to an ILO report released on Tuesday. Construction workers, domestics, seasonal labourers and drivers are caught in a system of modern day slavery, according to the report, which cites “collusion betwe...
Interview with Nick McGeehan from Mafiwasta
January 18th, 2009
Abusive employers General Slavery UAE
Migrant Rights talks to Nick McGeehan, founding member of human rights group Mafiwasta, set up in 2005 to bring to attention abuses of migrant workers in the Gulf. Mafiwasta currently focuses on the UAE, but hopes to expand its work to other countries in the region in future. Mafi is Arabic for ‘...
Condition of foreign workers in Jordan
September 11th, 2008
Abusive employers Jordan News Slavery Working conditions
A disturbing article from IRIN News: AMMAN, 10 September 2008 (IRIN) – A lawsuit in a US court over the alleged involvement of a Jordanian company in human trafficking has forced the Jordanian government to act against the practice. The Ministry of Interior has formed committees to draft legis...
More slaves today than at any point in history
March 28th, 2008
Abusive employers Slavery Trafficking
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 ma...
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