Seeking greener pastures in the desert

Lionel Wijesiri

It was deeply disturbing to read the recent news report about the Sri Lankan domestic helper with 24 nails embedded in her body after allegedly being tortured by her employer in Saudi Arabia. She had to undergo surgery in a Colombo hospital. She told the media that her employer inflicted the injuries on her as a punishment.

This is not an isolated case but just one more incident which reveals the ‘pathetic plight of domestic helpers’ in the Middle East.

According to official reports, more than 1.2 million Sri Lankans now work in the Middle East particularly in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Lebanon and Jordan. Of those, nearly 80 percent are women who work as domestic helpers. It is also estimated that over 100,000 Sri Lankan women leave our shores each year for the Gulf to work as domestic helpers and about 20 percent of them return home before completion of their contracts.

Not protected

Investigations have revealed that the major reason for their premature return is the abuse they face from their employers. Hundreds of domestic aides have become pregnant, often after rapes, producing children who, until Sri Lanka’s Constitution was recently amended, were stateless because their fathers were foreigners. More than 100 women come home dead each year. These are pathetic but really stubborn facts. Writing in the Arabic daily Eqtisadiah recently, Turki Al-Dakheel , the prominent Saudi journalist and media guru, notes with dismay how badly many Saudis treat their domestic helpers. Rather than a functional part of the household, he argues, too many see them as mere accessories, things to which women can point to show that they’re up there somewhere on the social scale. The way they are treated isn’t even in line with Bedouin ethics.

Unlike other guest workers, domestic helpers are not protected under Middle East countries’ labour law except in Jordan. Jordan has amended its labour law to include domestic workers, guaranteeing protections such as monthly payment of salaries into a bank account, a weekly day off, paid annual and sick leave, and a maximum 10-hour workday. All other countries consider domestic servants as exceptions to protections afforded other foreign workers. By default, domestic aids are treated as part of the family for which they work; however, their cases are never processed in the shari’ah courts, where all other family-related matters are litigated.

Because there is no oversight over work conditions, the domestic helpers serve at the whim of their employers, who also act as their immigration sponsors. Although there are many sponsors who treat their domestic helpers with respect and care, numerous incidents have been documented in recent years of exploitation and abuse, ranging from physical punishments for allegedly doing the job poorly, to sexual abuse and rape by male members of households.

Human Rights

The nations in the Gulf prefer to protect the reputations of their nationals than to curb human rights abuses. However, the rest of the World – particularly Human Rights Protection lobbies – have begun to take serious notice. For example, New York based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has issued a number of reports critical of Gulf States for not doing enough to protect domestic helpers working in their countries.

Solution

Lebanon was specifically mentioned for failing to protect an estimated 80,000 Sri Lankan domestic helpers within its borders with stringent employment laws.

HRW has further illustrated the atrocities that Sri Lankan maids face on a daily basis in Middle East countries. These women work between 16-21 hours per day and do not receive a day off during the workweek.

Clearly, something has got to give. Either the nations who host these domestic helpers in their countries must step up to the plate and protect their innate human rights. Or the countries, like Sri Lanka, have to step in and demand from host countries employment laws that will be enforced to protect the lives and livelihoods of these women.

Likewise, Women’s groups, non-governmental organisations and human rights bodies should be more involved in monitoring working conditions and living standards of domestic workers. Generally, the domestic helpers who come to Middle East are usually from the lowest socio-economic level in Sri Lanka and they pay the price for choosing to become domestic workers from the time they leave their homes until they reach their employer’s home.

Often, the domestic helper pays a recruiting agent or middleman in her hometown for the privilege of being recruited to work in Middle East, she pays the government agency for a passport, and then she comes the host country and find that her contract has been redrawn by her employer and takes a lower wage for more work.

What could be done?

By this time she’s deeply in debt, and the only way ahead for her is to work her way through the contract for the pittance she’s offered. The general consensus among the experts is that the first area of corrective treatment should be restoring the sanctity of the domestic worker’s contract. The most accepted recommendation is that all contracts drawn up for domestic helpers should carry a minimum salary, clearly lay out the salary, the terms and conditions of work, the days off per month and rest period per day and the annual leave and passage terms.

This contract should be signed by the employer, the domestic worker, the embassy official from Sri Lanka, the recruitment-agency representative. The contract should be considered binding on all parties in case of dispute, and any violations should be tackled seriously. Such a policy at government level would do much to clear up accusations of ill-treatment by domestic helpers. At present, not only are the domestic helpers outside the purview of the law, they’ve no say in their own work conditions.

The employer decides the nature of her work, whether she’ll be a nanny, cook, cleaner or all the above, whether she’ll work for five people or 10, whether her services will be lent to other households, her working hours and rest periods.

Legal contract

A legally binding and government-enforced contract would provide a short-cut to handling problems of domestic-worker abuse since most of these women are illiterate, unaware of their rights and have no access to social workers and to people from their community who would help them bridge the cultural gap and emotional vacuum created by a new place of residence.

And making matters worse, there are no clear procedures to handle complaints of abuse that domestic helpers made at police stations. When they sum up the courage to report abuse to the police, the legal system is to send them back to their employer’s home with no follow-up action or reassurances. This shatters their trust in the system, resulting in the increase of the number of runaway maids forced to turn to illicit activities such as prostitution to sustain themselves.

The moral justification of young girls and women being sent as glorified servants has continuously been a subject frequently and rigorously discussed in the print and electronic media. Leading sociologists, top educationists, social reformers, defenders of feminine rights have continuously agitated, debated and have written and spoken extensively on the question. Nearly all of these groups have vehemently opposed women being sent away as servants. There is also a public outcry that legislation should be brought in to ban women being sent as domestic aides.

However, right now, economic difficulties, particularly in rural areas have pushed our women to risk their limbs and lives to rush to unknown Middle East destinations to become domestic helpers. So, until such time our economy gets settled itself when we can stop our women sent as domestic helpers, the SLBFE has a moral duty to impose a ban on domestic helpers to work in countries with which it does not have a labour welfare pact. Such a ban would force the countries to come to the negotiation table for a welfare agreement. India has already signed similar MoUs with many Middle East countries including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Qatar and Jordan.