Fish farm project helps Indonesian trafficking victims rebuild lives | Free Malaysia Today

"The IOM says it is essential to help trafficking victims earn a living wage at home to “reject the fantasy world painted by traffickers and unscrupulous labour recruiters”."

"“There’s a high degree of risk that victims of trafficking will end up being re-trafficked if you fail to address the basic socio-economic drivers behind the decision to migrate in search of work in the first place,” IOM Indonesa spokesman Paul Dillon said."

Read  MORE

Fish farm project helps Indonesian trafficking victims rebuild lives | Free Malaysia Today:

Trafficked and abused: Indonesia's Middle East maid ban ...

"Mulyadi from rights group Migrant Care, which has assisted Sari and Hatmiati's families, urged Indonesia to review the ban."

""The government should re-evaluate the ban as it violates a person's fundamental rights to seek employment overseas," said Mulyadi, a co-founder of the group."

"He warned that a government plan to stop sending women overseas to work as domestic helpers in any country from this year would make the situation worse

Read MORE

Trafficked and abused: Indonesia's Middle East maid ban ...:

Reporting by Beh Lih Yi @behlihyi, Editing by Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit http://news.trust.org)

Debate: Prevention and Victim Compensation | Human Rights Watch

Author(s): 

 Nisha Varia

Published in: 

 Anti-Trafficking Review

Afroza, a Bangladeshi woman who worked for sixteen years without getting paid and was not allowed to go home to visit her family. Keni, an Indonesian woman whose employers injured her with a hot iron, leaving disfiguring third-degree burns all over her body. Kartika, an older Sri Lankan woman whose employers made her work around the clock without pay, shaved her head to humiliate her and gouged pieces of flesh out of her arm with knives. 

Read more:

Debate: Prevention and Victim Compensation | Human Rights Watch:

Witness: The “Innocent” Human Trafficker | Human Rights Watch

Source: Human Rights Watch

Amy Braunschweiger

Each year, thousands of people flee the extreme poverty and repression in the Horn of Africa to Yemen, hoping to go on to Saudi Arabia for work. In Haradh, many migrants sleep in the town square, a large expanse of parched earth littered with rotten mattresses. Many migrants fall into the hands of human traffickers who torture them to extort money from their families back home.

Read the story:

http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/05/25/witness-innocent-human-trafficker-0

Yemen’s Torture Camps

Abuse of Migrants by Human Traffickers in a Climate of Impunity

MAY 25, 2014

GET THE REPORT:

Download the full report

Download the summary and recommendations: photo feature

Hajj agencies under watch to prevent trafficking of Rohingyas - bdnews24.com

Source: bdnews24.com

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on the  Ministry of Religious Affairs has recommended a close watch on Hajj agencies to prevent trafficking of Rohingya refugees to Saudi Arabia in
the guise of pilgrimage.

Continue:

 http://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2014/04/20/hajj-agencies-under-watch-to-prevent-trafficking-of-rohingya-refugee

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Modern Day Slavery: 126 Nepali Women rescued by Nepali embassy in Saudi Arabia.

Source: GroundReport.com

It has been reported that 129 women who had been working in different parts of the Saudi Arabia were rescued by the Nepali embassy in Saudi Arabia from the past 3 months. Most of these victims have been subjected to violence and sexual exploitation in one or the other form.

Continue here:

http://groundreport.com/modern-day-slavery-126-nepali-women-rescued-by-nepali-embassy-in-saudi-arabia/

Saudi Diplomat Human Trafficking: Why Do Diplomats and the Wealthy Turn to Human Trafficking?

http://www.policymic.com/articles/39581/human-trafficking-in-the-u-s-its-unexpected-causes-and-culprits

SOURCE: POLICYMIC.COM

• Ana Defillo
• in
• World,
• Human Rights
• 6 days ago

Saudi Diplomat Human Trafficking Why Do Diplomats and the Wealthy Turn to Human Trafficking

Last week, Jackie Bensen from News4 in Washington broke the story of a possible human-trafficking case at a Saudi diplomatic compound in McLean, Virginia. On April 30, two domestic workers from the Philippines were removed from the compound as potential victims of human trafficking, and an investigation is currently underway. CNN reports the women are claiming "the Saudi attaché kept their passports, made them work extremely long hours, and did not pay them."

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed the investigation to News4 and according to aState Department spokesperson, it’s in “very early stages and complicated by the possibility that some of those involved may have diplomatic immunity.” 

This isn’t the first time a diplomat has been accused of human trafficking in the United States. In the last decade, we have seen an increase of stories reporting cases of foreign diplomats trafficking domestic workers into the United States. Special visas called A-3 visas make it easy for this exploitation to occur. These visas, specifically for employees of diplomats and their families, are dependent on an employment contract and are not under the provisions of U.S law or regulations. This means the contract "provides little protection from abuse" and has no governmental agency responsible for ensuring the contract’s obligations.

It's unbelievable that diplomats, agents of state institutions, would exploit such a practice to enslave a human being. Furthermore, why is this becoming a trend? What motivates or justifies diplomats to traffic workers into the United States? These sorts of cases complicate the view of a trafficker and the typical motivation given for trafficking of human beings, which is generally poverty, immorality, and organized crime. Diplomats do not fit under these neat categories so how do we explain this? Is it racial, class, or gender issues? Is it because they can get away with it? Diplomatic immunity prevents the diplomats from being prosecuted in U.S courts.  The most the victims can do to find justice is file an unenforceable civil law suit.

These types of cases expose how much more work needs to be done to combat human trafficking. The current focus on international human trafficking is very security-oriented, with campaigns to enforce stricter border controls and heavy prosecutions for the traffickers. This approach is problematic and alone cannot prevent or stop the insidious industry. The United States' anti-human trafficking policies are supposed to “free victims, prevent trafficking, and bring traffickers to justice.” Yet when translated into reality, the most enforced and funded policies are oriented towards the consequences of trafficking, not towards stopping trafficking itself.

We need to work on preventing human trafficking. In order to achieve this, we need to take a step back and map out human trafficking — who the victims are, who the traffickers are, and why. We must direct our research, policies, preventions, and interventions at the why behind human trafficking instead of reinforcing the harmful dichotomy of “criminals” and “helpless victims” seen in current campaigns. This gives a layer of agency to the victim and can help us better understand the bigger picture that will inevitably lead to more effective and efficient solutions.

Thoughts on how we can prevent human trafficking? Reach me @adefillo

Picture Credit: Daily Telegraph

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Philippines seeks to reduce numbers of overseas domestic workers - latimes.com

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/09/in-the-face-of-ongoing-complaints-of-abuse-and-fraud-abroad-government-officials-are-seeking-to-stem-the-wave-of-more-than.html

SOURCE:latimes.com

September 15, 2012 

In the face of complaints of abuse and fraud abroad, Philippine government officials are seeking to stem the wave of more than a million Filipinas who have headed overseas to work as maids.

The outpouring of workers to other countries has paid off for the Philippines financially, sending more than $20 billion into the country last year. But horror stories of Filipinas beaten, molested and left unpaid elsewhere in Asia and the Middle East have dogged the "maid trade."

Their plight so alarmed Philippine lawmakers that a government mission traveled to Saudi Arabia last year to interview hundreds of housekeepers. One legislator likened the worst cases abroad to "modern-day slavery." Reeling, the Philippines has pushed for stricter rules, demanding a minimum wage and a weekly day off. It ratified an international treaty promising to protect the workers' rights.

But the tales of abuse have continued, pushing the government to go further. Philippine media have aired a litany of grim stories over the last year: a 22-year-old worker leaping from a third-floor window to escape her employer in Jordan, another burned with a hot iron and stabbed with a kitchen knife in Syria, yet another whose body allegedly came back from Saudi Arabia without eyes or a tongue.

"Our overriding concern is the protection of domestic workers," Hans Leo Cacdac, head of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, said in an interview late last month. "That’s why we are undertaking this plan to reduce the numbers."

How exactly the Philippines will reduce the flow of overseas domestic workers is unclear, with plans still being shaped by government officials. Cacdac says the goal is not to bar Filipinas from going abroad, but to nudge them toward better jobs by assessing their skills and education.

Some Filipinas take jobs doing housework despite having other skills. Marilou Pundar Monge studied engineering and technology in the Philippines but struggled to find a job at home that could provide for her two children. She headed to Malaysia to do domestic work, toiling almost 15 hours a day in a Kuala Lumpur home.

"I couldn’t earn much in the Philippines even though I had finished college," said Pundar Monge, now 51.

Talk of cutting back on foreign workers has been closely watched in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other countries that bring in tens of thousands of Filipinas annually to cook and clean. In the past, the Philippines has blacklisted entire countries; it assured an Emirati newspaper it wouldn't do so this time, focusing on abusive employers and recruiters instead.

Migrant activists say focusing on better jobs is a better tactic than simply cutting women off from working overseas, as media reports about the plan first suggested. Banning workers from jobs abroad can backfire and end up worsening abuse, said Human Rights Watch senior researcher Nisha Varia.

"Women still want these jobs. Employers still want these workers. If the formal channels are closed, people will go around them –- and they’ll go around them without protection," Varia warned.

The desire to seek a better living abroad is so strong, said Ellene Sana, executive director of the Center for Migrant Advocacy in Manila, that thousands of Philippine domestic workers are still in war-ravaged Syria. Though hundreds returned to Manila this week, Sana says new workers have been illegally recruited even as the fighting escalated, and thousands have stayed in the country despite the government insisting it will cover the costs of their repatriation.

Turning its gaze inward, to address what drives people away from the Philippines, makes sense, Sana said. "We have been prodding the government to do precisely that, rather than looking beyond the borders where we have very little influence," she said.

The burgeoning Philippine economy may change the dynamic, a Singaporean financial group argued in a recent research note. On the flip side, wilting economies abroad could make staying home more attractive.

Pundar Monge said she decided to return to her country years ago for her dignity and her family. Leaving home cost her too much, she said. While she was working abroad, her oldest daughter died. Fellow workers told her about beatings and starvation at the hands of their employers.

"I would persuade young women to stay and find greener pastures here," Pundar Monge said.

Related articles

• Philippines: Group Urges Help For Maids In Saudi Arabia (eurasiareview.com)
• Philippine U.S. Consulate Faces Trafficking Heat | Womens eNews (trafficking-monitor.blogspot.com)
• Philippines ratifies international treaty for domestic workers rights (jurist.org)
• Protection first but job creation and job training next (stimuluscapitalideas.wordpress.com)

Nepalese dying to work

Nepalese dying to work:
Kathmandu, Nepal (CNN) – Twenty-one-year-old Ramila Syangden weeps uncontrollably as she clutches her 10-month-old baby. She sits and watches as the pyre where her husband’s body will be cremated is set alight in the open Nepalese air.
Syangden never considered one of the potential consequences of her husband’s decision to work abroad. Now she can’t ignore it.
Hours before the Buddhist cremation ceremony she watched the coffin, with her husband’s body inside, arrive on a flight from Saudi Arabia where he had worked.
The paperwork says the 36-year old committed suicide there. Not a single person gathered for the cremation ceremony believes it.
“I don’t think so. He said he would go abroad, see the place, earn as much as he could for the children and come back. I think somebody killed him,“ his wife said.

She may never know exactly what happened to him. But the family says he had every reason to live. He was a retired police officer collecting a pension. He was healthy and he’d been working in Saudi Arabia for less than a month without any complaints.
“When my son went I thought that he would earn money for the family but his dead body came back instead,” his father, Sonam Singh Bomjang, said.
He can’t believe his son died this way, especially considering he survived being shot by Maoists while serving as a Nepali police officer.

Click to watch video

The family's story is not at all unusual. Nepal is one of the poorest countries on earth. With little work available, an estimated 1,300 Nepalese citizens go abroad for work every single day. But every day some return in coffins.
“On an average per day, two to three coffins are coming back to Nepal mostly from the Gulf countries,” said sociologist Ganesh Gurung, a member of Nepal’s government task force for foreign labor reform.
The official reason for the deaths vary, but once the bodies make it to Nepal the cause of death is rarely if ever investigated further.
Gurung says Nepalese workers attracted by good money abroad often face awful problems. The most common complaint: workers do not get what they were promised. But the complaints can be far worse, particularly for women who work as maids in homes.
“They have experienced physical exploitation, sexual exploitation, and we have received many girls coming back with children from their employers,” Gurung said.
We met one such maid. Not even her own family knows the pain she has suffered. Kumari is seven months pregnant and said the baby inside her is a product of rape. The father, she says, is her former employer in Kuwait.
For a year-and-a-half Kumari said she was paid the equivalent of $144 a month but then the pay stopped and the beatings started.
“My landlord would beat me, they (he and his wife) both would beat me. My body would ache. I bore that beating for a long time but stayed,” she said in tears.
Then one day, she said, the beating came with something else; rape.
She said the landlord came home when the rest of the family was out, and called her into the bathroom while she was folding clothes in another room. When she refused he came to her.
“He beat me up. First he covered my mouth so I could not scream. After he did that (raped me) I asked for my passport. He wouldn’t give it to me,” she said her voice breaking.
So she fled to the Nepalese Embassy in Kuwait with no passport. She says she spent weeks in Nepalese custody and found herself with dozens of other Nepali women.
Some were pregnant like her, others had babies, and still others were one their own - but they all wanted to escape employment there.
The 35-year-old divorced mother of two now lives in a shelter in Nepal with other maids recovering from abuse abroad. When we asked what she planned to do with the baby on the way she said: “I wanted to get rid of this baby, (abort it), but they told me that was not possible because my life would be endangered.”
She was several months pregnant when she finally made it back to Nepal. “Now the baby is going to be born. I am not going to keep it,” she said.
For more than 10 years, Nepal banned women from traveling to Gulf countries for work after the suicide of a Nepalese maid who complained of abuse in Kuwait.
But the need to survive surpassed fear and women did it illegally. The government lifted the ban in 2010.
Now the lines for foreign work visas are as long as ever, even as the stories of despair keep coming home.
Human labor is Nepal’s largest export. The workers usually sign two or three-year contracts to work for employers abroad. The money Nepalese workers send back to their families from outside the country accounts for nearly 25% of Nepal’s gross domestic product.
It is big business in Nepal, officially second only to agriculture. And some labor experts argue remittances from abroad are actually the biggest contributor to the country’s economy because it is nearly impossible to tally all the cash that makes its way back into the country.
At a training facility in the capital, Masino Tamang is going abroad for the second time to find work even after he says he endured backbreaking work the first time.
He was promised a job as a driver, but when he arrived in Malaysia the job was making and lifting heavy furniture.
Still Tamang plans to try again. This time he is getting training and going through a professional agency.
“I am not going because I want to. People have money problems. If I stay home I will not be able to earn anything,” he said.
Some do make a relatively decent living but all say they work very hard. The government has now mandated any citizen going to work abroad must attend an orientation course.
Private companies such as SOS Manpower offer skills training and safety training to villagers who will be working on buildings on a scale they have never seen before. Many of the workers come from mountain villages where the only skyscraper is the Himalayan mountains.
But nothing can prepare these men for the searing desert heat in the countries where they will work. The heat has often been suspected in worker deaths.
For those using illegal means to get work abroad, the living conditions can be so horrid and unsanitary it makes workers sick.
Nepal’s Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai told CNN he is well aware of the many problems Nepal’s workers are facing abroad. He told us the government has been making changes to try to protect its workers.
“We have instructed our missions in those countries to take the issue seriously, but the main problem still is as long as we can’t provide jobs within our own country they are forced to migrate. They use illegal channels and when they go there illegally then they don’t have legal protection,” he said.
Bhattarai has a plan to bring more jobs to his country but concedes it could take years to see the fruits of that plan.
Far too late for the men and women who returned emotionally scarred, or even in a box, for simply trying to create a better life for themselves.

Modern day Slavery or Trafficking a question…. | GroundReport

http://www.groundreport.com/Opinion/Modern-day-Slavery-or-Trafficking-a-question/2944104

Source: GroundReport

by Shreedeep Rayamajhi February 07, 2012

HUMAN SLAVERY and TRAFFICKING has been an issue around the globe. Even worst for the developing and underdeveloped countries where they have been trying to find a viable solution. No matter how hard they try their weak economic crisis makes them vulnerable to such externalities. It has been a huge question of identity for the women of the underdeveloped countries where its relevancy is abstract to the question of its definition. Nepal has been trying to fight WOMEN TRAFFICKING and SLAVERY in many ways. The definition and means have been changing according to time and situation. The awareness programs are getting intense to deal with the hardcore business where the business is also expanding and adapting new forms among its competition and prospects. Like such talking more about today’s TRAFFICKING and SLAVERY situation, things have changed. The old scenario of agents have transformed into variables of uncountable people in a network that links thousands of people that cannot be easily calculated. Bate for today’s has been lucrative salary and website that lures women of all over especially underdeveloped countries to earn more in despite attempt to save their financial condition. Willingly or unwillingly women are being TRAFFICKED in the name of MIGRANT WORKERS for the treachery of MODERN DAY SLAVERY.

Under the Foreign Employment act of Nepal, “It is clearly said that any person or agency involved with foreign employment have to be registered under the ministry and has to follow the norms and regulations of the foreign employment act. If not then they will be considered illegal. The company has to follow certain rules and regulation regarding the training, awareness and other aspect of the rights of the worker in safeguarding and protecting the migrant worker in the foreign land.”

In a recent case, around 3000 Nepali migrant women were stopped at Indian airports of New Delhi and Mumbai, who were trying to fly to Saudi Arab. They were stopped as they lacked proper documents and in questionnaire they prove to have no answer regarding their status. The ratio of illegal foreign employment migration has been increasing where it is considered to be 63,000 Nepali women working in Saudi Arabia but the official figure confirms only 2,540. It is clearly stated in the Foreign Employment Act 2007 that flying from a foreign airport for foreign employment without getting foreign employment permit is illegal.

With or without knowledge these women are taken in by a network of agents who land them up in their desired destination with no security and rights. These women are then exploited and harassed both physically and verbally. In most cases they are turned back either when they are dead or in case of pregnancy which makes it evident for their illegal status.

Like such the guardian in its latest coverage, Beirut death of Nepalese migrant worker Lila quotes, “Lila Aacharya left Nepal hoping to make a better life for her two young daughters. Two months later her body was flown home. Lila's case exposes the toll of HUMAN TRAFFICKING - from her attempt to escape the poverty of her village in the Himalayan foothills to her exploitation and death as a domestic worker in an up market apartment in Beirut.”

The case of woman exploitation and harassment in foreign lands are on high trail especially in the Arab world. The job employment opportunities have evolved as the form of MODERN DAY SLAVERY. Women migrants workers are explicitly exploited sexually, verbally and in most case are killed due to lack of weak labor standards. This is the reality of today that has explored the possibilities of what can turn to one mistake of making the wrong choice and not knowing your rights.


According to Aasha Lama, President of Aasha H4 Foundation, “The government has set up few parameters for the foreign job employment and why we are not following that is a question. Women Trafficking is not a simple issue it’s a social issue which needs to be cooperated from all sides. We at the foundation believe any women migrating abroad without knowing her right and stand is wrong. We say to send people without following the rules and regulations of the government, illegally is a new form of women trafficking and we strongly oppose it. We challenge all the people who have been sending women abroad without following the rules and regulation. They are culprits as when the government has set up the parameters why are we not following it.”

“A woman being sold or exploited aboard is not a question of her disgrace it’s a shame for the whole country which needs to be understood and worked. Being abroad is not easy situation but being aware is a situation that can be worked and controlled,” added she.

To be or not to be is not a question but to make the choice is more vital to make your own will and standing. Foreign Employment opportunities seem as a very lucrative sector for underdeveloped and developing nation but to the extent it is evolving as the legal way of MODERN DAY SLAVERY andTRAFFICKING. In a country like ours that fights to hold its existence the question of huge revenues earned from foreign employment certainly holds the economy but to its counterpart it also questions cons of this field. Foreign employment opportunity can be a form of huge revenue but on the other side it has also evolved as a form of HUMAN SLAVERY or HUMAN TRAFFICKIING which needs to be studied and researched.

Related articles

• S Arabia warns to stop hiring Nepalis (thehimalayantimes.com)

BERNAMA - Malaysia To Sign Security Agreement With China, Vietnam

Source: BERNAMA

September 19, 2011 17:02 PM

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 19 (Bernama) -- Malaysia will sign an agreement on security cooperation with China and Vietnam to tackle transnational crime, said Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein.

Among others, he said, the agreement involved the sharing of information on international syndicates indulging in human trafficking.

"The agreement is also crucial in studying the flow of manufactured goods in the context of trade which can sometimes be interpreted as goods that pose a nuclear threat, for example," he told reporters after launcing the third edition of the International Conference on Financial Crime and Terrorism Financing, here Monday.

Hishammuddin said the agreement with Vietnam involved, among others, human trafficking, workers' and students' visa besides security relations between the two countries.

In his speech earlier, the minister said he would travel to China and later Vietnam to ink the cooperation pacts in the next few months.

"Malaysia is serious about combating transnational crime and we shall pursue this agenda to ensure that Malaysia remains a highly secure, safe and prosperous nation for the benefit of its people and economy," he told the gathering.

Hishammuddin noted that Malaysia had signed an agreement on security cooperation with Saudi Arabia in April 2011 and a memorandum of understanding to prevent and combat transnational crime with the United Kingdom three months later.

"We should realise that transnational crime is now one of the major threats facing the world today. This is far bigger than the threat to the global system compared to double-dip recessions, political uprising in the Middle East or even earthquakes and tsunamis," he said.

He pointed out that transnational crime was far too complex for any one nation to combat effectively as it was a global problem which required global solutions with domestic enforcement.

The two-day conference is organised by a number of entities such as the Institute of Bankers Malaysia, Compliance Officers' Networking Group, Asian Institute of Finance and Malaysian Insurance Institute.

-- BERNAMA

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The WIP Contributors: Pursuit of Greener Pastures in Saudi Arabia Spells Doom for Kenyan Immigrants

by Joyce J. Wangui
-Kenya-

As the quest for working abroad heightens for many skilled and semi-skilled Kenyans, only a handful understand the implications of working in countries where labor laws are ignored. Media reports of brutality toward foreign laborers in Saudi Arabia have done little to deter determined Kenyans from seeking greener pastures. But has the search for a better life become modern-day slavery?

• Women in Mombasa - the city with the highest level of migration to Saudi Arabia in Kenya. Photograph by Flickr user Lvovsky and used under a Creative Commons license. •

The 2010 International Organization for Migration report Harnessing the Development Potential of Kenyans living in the United Kingdom cites the lack of employment opportunities and unattractive wage levels in Kenya as among the factors that have led to high levels of migration abroad.

Approximately 3000 female Kenyan domestic workers are currently working in Saudi Arabia (although the number could be higher since some do not register with the Kenyan Embassy in Riyadh). Of these, 90 percent are from Mombasa, where a majority of residents share the same Islamic beliefs as Saudis, a factor that woos many into immigrating there.

Saudi Arabia has been in the spotlight for unlawful human trafficking and has been named a Tier 3 country by the U.S. Department of State in its 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report. A Tier 3 country’s government does not fully comply with the minimum standards required by the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 and is not making significant efforts to do so.

When Salma Noor, 28, left Kenya for Saudi Arabia in 2008, she thought she was entering a safe haven. Her job-recruiting agent had promised her a lucrative job at a duty-free shop based at Riyadh International Airport.

“Upon reaching in Saudi, I was received by a middle-aged couple who told me that I would work in their house as a domestic worker.” Her employers confiscated her passport and took her mobile phone. She was made to work 18 hours a day, usually with no food, save for the little she managed to grab while cooking.

“I was not even allowed to sleep in the house. I slept in an uncomfortably tiny room, which was for their dog before it died. The man of the house often raped me and threatened to kill me if I ever told anyone. His wife beat me on a daily basis, as if the act was part of my job.”

Noor was once burned with a hot iron and later locked in a room devoid of oxygen for committing the crime of singing. “I had to battle for oxygen,” she says amid sobs.

Saudi Arabia’s sponsorship system, known as Kafala, ties employment visas to employers thus transforming voluntary servitude to slavery. A resident permit is arranged by recruiting agencies that match the worker to the household and charge both parties a recruitment fee. Workers become indebted to the agencies and often spend months repaying them.

A typical workday for domestic workers in Saudi Arabia is 15 hours. At US $7-14 per day, the average hourly wage amounts to less than one dollar per hour. In extreme cases, an employee’s salary is withheld for a long time with the assumption that the domestic worker does not need the money since she has all provisions at her host house.

Fatima Hassan, 30, is a victim of such wage slavery. She had not been paid for one-and-a-half years and recently returned to Kenya. Hassan says she was lucky to escape.

“Whenever I asked for my payment, my boss insisted that she keeps for me until it gets into a lump sum, but when I nagged for it, I was thoroughly beaten and threatened with death.” She adds that some Saudi families would rather kill you than pay your wages.

Hassan was assisted by the Kenyan embassy in Riyadh. “Embassy officials could not intervene for my salary, though they paid for my return flight to Kenya after keeping me for two weeks at the embassy premises.”

Like many others, Hassan was confined in her employer’s house for two years under a cruel system that is socially accepted and legally sanctioned in Saudi Arabia. “No off-days, no rest, no nothing. These people are animals, in fact worse than animals,” is all Hassan has to say.

In yet another harrowing incident, as reported by Human Rights Watch in 2010, Saudi authorities deported Fatima Athman, a domestic worker from Mombasa after she reported injuries “from her employer pushing her off a third-floor balcony in an attempt to kill her. She survived because she fell into a swimming pool.”

When contacted, the recruiting agency that had helped Athman secure her job denied the claims of torture, saying that most girls were being punished for disobedience. Suffering by Kenyans at the hands of both employers and employment agencies has spurred heated debates among human rights activists, the media, and civil societies. They blame the government for keeping a blind eye.

• U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton releases the 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report, at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on June 27, 2011. [State Department photo/ Public Domain] •

Hassan Noor, an ex-official of the Kenya National Human Rights Commission, bluntly accuses the Saudi government for perpetuating neo-slavery. In an interview, he echoes Hillary Clinton’s words that countries perpetuating modern-day slavery should be named and shamed. The U.S. Secretary of State has been at the forefront of spearheading the fight against modern-day slavery in the world.

Self-proclaimed human rights activist Hussein Khalid says, “We have a Kenyan Embassy in Riyadh which appears toothless. Even the Kenyan Ambassador in Saudi Arabia, where these atrocities are happening before his eyes, appears to be silent.” The Government, he feels, should be doing much more to protect its workers abroad.

According to Ken Vitisia, Director of the Middle East Office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kenya and Saudi Arabia could sign a bilateral labor agreement soon. “Officials from both countries have held inter-ministerial meetings seeking to establish a legal framework that would protect Kenyans that travel to seek employment in any capacity.”

The agreement would ensure that the government keeps track of Kenyan employees in Saudi Arabia. Amongst the conditions in the agreement, Vitisia says, is a proposal for the contract drawn to be between the employers in Saudi Arabia and the Kenyan employee before travel. Most of the contracts currently being signed are between agents and the employee and later the agent draws another one between him and the employers.

A joint collaboration between the labor and foreign affairs ministries and the International Organization for Migration has also seen the establishment of a labor migration unit to protect the increasing number of Kenyans working abroad.

Labor official Beatrice Kituyi says the unit would act as a one-stop shop where information will be processed and enquiries on labor migration addressed. “We issued a directive to all international employers and employment agencies to register with us, detailing the nature of the jobs, skills required, and the wages being offered. They also have to be vetted.”

The unit has also spread information at home to bring about greater awareness of the risks and rights faced by Kenyan women who choose to migrate and to strengthen the services provided to them by its embassies.

The Human Rights Watch report As If I Am Not Human documents how domestic workers in Saudi Arabia suffer physical abuse, sexual abuse, and economic exploitation but face obstacles to redress. Saudi law specifically excludes domestic workers from protections of the labor law.

Some victims of abuse, due to procedural hurdles, choose to leave the country rather than confront their abusers in court. Subira Bakari unsuccessfully tried to file complaints with the police. She recently returned home with her son, who was also working in Saudi Arabia under deplorable conditions.

“When it dawned on me that taking my abuser to court was an exercise in futility, I feigned sickness and was consequently deported to Kenya.”

Bakari faked epilepsy, which prompted her employers to contact her agency back home to arrange for her repatriation. “This was no easy task as my agent ordered me to pay him Sh.150, 000 (US $1,661) in order to return home.”

Bakari adds that the Saudi Government opts to return victims of abuse to their home countries without adequately investigating and prosecuting the crimes committed against them.

Human Rights Watch research shows that migrant domestic workers are some of the least protected workers in the world. In Saudi Arabia, an estimated 1.5 million migrant domestic workers are excluded from labor law protections.

Female domestic workers bear a heavier brunt as they are often trafficked for sexual exploitations. If nothing is done now, poor immigrants will continue to suffer, and even face death, as they seek greener pastures abroad.

About the Author:
Joyce J. Wangui is a freelance journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya and writes for various online media agencies. She earned a Diploma in Mass Communication in 2002, and started her media career in Rwanda in early 2003 where she worked as a senior political reporter for The New Times, a state-owned English newspaper. Joyce is an active member of Highway Africa; an annual gathering of African journalists in South Africa and the Deutsche Welle Global Media forum held in Bonn, Germany. She is currently pursuing a one-year correspondence degree in International Journalism.

Source: thewip.net

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Saudi Arabian torment of migrant workers at mercy of abusive 'madams' | World news | The Observer

Foreign workers in Saudi Arabia send £17bn to families back home annually. But for some, the cost in physical and mental abuse is too high, writes Jason Burke

• 
• • Jason Burke
  • guardian.co.uk, Saturday 25 June 2011 19.24 BST
  • Article history

A Saudi woman applies makeup to a woman at a cosmetics exhibition in Jeddah. Photograph: Amer Hilabi/AFP/Getty Images
 
Shortly after dawn, as the sun rises over the hills behind the city, tens of thousands of women will wake in the Saudi Arabian port of Jeddah and go to work. Maybe 14 or 16 hours later, their day will be over.
They are maids, almost all from the Philippines or Indonesia, working for £100-£200 a month. There are more than 500,000 of them in Saudi Arabia, among nearly nine million foreign workers who sweep roads, clean offices, staff coffee shops, drive the cars that women are banned from driving and provide the manpower on the vast construction projects.

The story of the maids rarely receives attention, except when a new shocking incident reveals once again the problems many of them face. Last weekend a 54-year-old Indonesian maid was beheaded by sword for killing her female boss with a cleaver. Ruyati binti Sapubi had, an Islamic court heard, endured years of abuse before finally attacking her "madam", as the maids call their employers, when denied permission to return home.

Another Indonesian maid also faces execution for killing her boss whom she alleges tried to rape her. Other recent incidents include a Sri Lankan maid who had nails driven into her legs and arms by her employers, and another who was scalded with a hot iron.

Every year, thousands of the maids run away from their employers in Saudi Arabia.

Often physically or mentally scarred, they find themselves in a legal limbo. In Saudi Arabia, the consent of employers or "sponsors" is needed before any worker can leave the country.

Last week the Observer was able to visit a secret shelter in Jeddah – there are others elsewhere in Saudi Arabia – where 50 women are being looked after by well-wishers. The shelter is tolerated by local authorities, but the women who stay there, often for months on end, are not allowed to leave once they have entered and cannot use mobile phones. Sixteen sleep in a single room.

The maids say, however, that it is better than what they left behind. Most tell of fleeing employers who did not pay their wages; many talk of physical, mental or sexual abuse.

Rose, a 40-year-old from the island of Leyte, in the far south of the Phillipines, has spent five months in the shelter after fleeing from her employers after her "madam" threw keys into her face, narrowly missing an eye. "I don't know why she did it. She lost her temper," said Rose, whose wages were consistently in arrears.

Many exist in an illegal netherworld in the sprawling city itself. Muneera, a 33-year-old from the Muslim south of the Philippines – from where many of the maids in deeply conservative Saudi Arabia come – told the Observer that she was sleeping on friends' floors after fleeing her employers. The family she worked for was "kind", Muneera said, but the hours were unbearable.

"I worked from 5am to 1am, almost every day. I got up to make the children breakfast and get them ready to go to school and then cleaned the house all day, and in the evening my employers would go out and come back at midnight and want dinner. Finally it was just too much," she said.

Beth Medina, a 46-year-old maid, said she ran away after two months. "I had no idea what it was going to be like. If there was a single hair on the floor, madam was angry at me. The only food I got was leftovers from their dinner. If there wasn't any, I got bread," she told the Observer.

Few of the maids, who are often recruited by agencies in the Philippines, have much idea about where they are going or what will be expected of them. Terms of employment are also variable. As domestic workers, they are not protected by Saudi labour law.

Riyadh recently rejected demands from Manila for medical insurance for maids and for information on employers to be supplied before their departure. For their part, Philippine officials refused to accept a cut in the minimum wage for maids from $400 a month to $200. The result is a moratorium on the hiring of maids. Indonesia has also stopped its citizens travelling to Saudi Arabia following the execution last week.

Yet the governments are likely to come to some arrangement. There have been such standoffs before, and in relative terms the foreign workers generate huge sums of cash, most of which is sent to needy families at home and provides important revenues for developing nations. Saudi Arabia was the source of £17bn of such "remittances" last year, second only to the US. Entire states in some countries depend on the funds flowing in.

Money from the Gulf has transformed parts of India, particularly the Keralan coast, where many Muslims who work in Saudi Arabia live, for example. With such huge sums at stake, the plight of the odd "camel shepherd who dies unnoticed in the desert for a wage of $50 per week" is seen as unimportant, said Mohammed Iftikar, an Indian who works on behalf of foreign workers in Jeddah.

But the problems are growing. The number of foreign workers in the kingdom has been edging up, from a quarter of the total population a decade ago to nearly a third today. At the same time, youth unemployment in Saudi Arabia is approaching 30%.

The Saudi government is now trying to impose tight restrictions on the number of foreigners any company can hire and clamping down on long-term overseas workers.

"We have a young population. We need to generate 6.5 million jobs. At the moment we have jobs that people don't like to do. So either we create jobs that people like, or we try to convince people to accept the jobs that are available," Dr Abdul Wahid bin Khalid al-Humaid, the vice-minister of labour, told the Observer in an interview in Riyadh last week. Analysts say it is unlikely, however, that Saudis will replace the foreigners soon.

Many foreign workers arrive illegally, smuggled in from Qatar, Kuwait or Yemen. There are estimated to be tens of thousands of "absconders" – as those who have run away from the jobs for which their residence permits were issued are called – from Nepal alone. And the wealth of Saudi Arabia, where the per capita GDP is more than £15,000, continues to attract more people.

Many workers both enjoy their time in Saudi Arabia and are grateful for the opportunity employment there gives them. Their example encourages others to travel too.

Eileen, a 44-year-old maid from Iloilo in the Philippines, said her employers always paid her monthly wage of £400 on time and even "invited [her] to eat with them sometimes". Though she gets up at 5.30am and works until late in the evening, she has some time off in the day and each summer travels with the family on holiday to Europe.

With the money she earns, Eileen supports the four children of her brother, who died in a car accident last year. "Maybe I am lucky," she said.

One result of the huge foreign population is a cosmopolitanism that lightens the otherwise severe and puritanical atmosphere in Saudi Arabia. Every major city has its "immigrant quarter", where people from a score or more countries fill cheap restaurants serving food from across Asia and further afield or simply sit on street corners where a dozen different languages can be heard.

In Jeddah, it is the old city, Balad. On a Friday night, its car-choked streets were full of Filipino care workers in embroidered headscarves bringing colour to their obligatory black, Saudi-style, abbaya gowns; Indian labourers smoking enthusiastically; Sudanese teenagers earning a few riyals by washing windscreens; and Afghan children begging. Recent arrivals from central Africa collected cardboard packaging to sell for recycling. In the Selamat Datang cafe, Indonesian hotel workers downed traditional dishes from home – with rice, a bowl of soup and a Pepsi – for 14 riyal (£2.30).

For Rose, the maid stuck in the secret shelter, and Muneera, the runaway sleeping on friend's floors, such scenes hold little attraction. Their needs, they say, are simple. Muneera just needs a way out of the trap she has fallen into. She says she will go to the Philippine consulate and seek help.

Rose just wants an exit visa, the money for a flight home and enough cash left over to allow her three children to go back to school. "I hope I will go soon," she said.

Source:  The Observer

The plight of domestic workers abroad - Inside Story - Al Jazeera English

Indonesia is stopping their nationals going to Saudi Arabia to work as maids after one woman was beheaded last week.

Inside Story Last Modified: 29 Jun 2011 11:32

Indonesia is stopping all maids from going to work in Saudi Arabia after the beheading of a maid last week for murdering her allegedly abusive employer.

The execution of 54-year-old Ruhati Binti Sapahi caused public outrage in Indonesia, prompting the government to call for the ban.

Saudi Arabia did not inform the Indonesian ambassador that the execution was going to take place but apologised afterwards for the "mistake".

Twenty-two other Indonesian workers are also on death row in Saudi Arabia.

Indonesia has 1.5 million workers in Saudi Arabia alone, most of them women. In total Indonesia has 6 million workers abroad, again mainly women. Last year they remitted $7bn to their families in Indonesia.

But what does it take to protect their rights? And who is to blame for their suffering?

Inside Story, with presenter Folly Bah Thibault, discusses with Simel Esim, a senior regional technical specialist on gender equality and women worker's rights for the International Labour Organization, and Christoph Wilcke, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, specialising in Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insidestory/2011/06/20116297232774383.html

This episode of Inside Story aired from June 28, 2011.

Source: Inside Story - Al Jazeera English

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