Category Archives: Domestic workers

Urgent action needed to protect ‘dying’ Kenyan domestic workers in Gulf, say rights groups

Posted on by

Deaths and alleged abuse of Kenyan women in Saudi Arabia fuels demands for Nairobi to act on human rights

Rights groups have expressed concern that not enough has been done to address the alleged mistreatment of domestic workers in Gulf states, such as Saudi Arabia, after the Kenyan government moved to secure work opportunities abroad for its citizens.

“This is a matter of grave public interest,” said John Mwariri, a lawyer at Kituo cha Sheria, a legal aid organisation. “Many of our Kenyan citizens have been abused and are dying there. There is an urgent need for protections.”

Continue reading...

Philippine job agencies cheating women with illegal fees and crippling loans

Posted on by

Migrants NGO finds recruiters making applicants pay for medical fees and training by taking out credit at exorbitant rates of interest

Employment agencies and money-lending companies in the Philippines are cheating women applying for jobs abroad out of thousands of pounds by charging illegal fees paid with high-interest loans, interviews and documents show.

Interviews with hundreds of women and thousands of pages of complaints compiled by a migrant rights organisation showed job agencies charged applicants training and medical fees that are above the legally allowed limit.

Continue reading...

Oman ‘failing to stop trafficking and abuse of migrant domestic workers’

Posted on by

Report finds widespread instances of forced labour, with women denied access to passports and subjected to physical or sexual abuse

Oman is failing to protect migrant domestic workers who are victims of human trafficking, trapped in abusive households and subjected to physical and sexual violence with no access to justice or a safe route home, a report has found.

Do Bold, an organisation that works to assist and repatriate migrant workers trapped in the Gulf, interviewed 469 domestic workers from Sierra Leone working in Oman, for the report. It concluded that all but one of the women interviewed were victims of forced labour and human trafficking.

Continue reading...

Where’s Edelyn? The search for the Filipina maid who vanished in Saudi Arabia

Posted on by

Mired in debt, the mother of three left to work as part of the Gulf’s kafala labour system. She was last heard from in 2015 and her family want answers

Edelyn Eborda Astudillo wanted a better life for her three children. The 36-year-old from Mariveles in the Philippines, and her husband, Crisanto, had been unemployed for six years and things were getting desperate. So, in early 2015, Edelyn made the decision to travel to the Middle East to get a job as a domestic worker.

After applying to a Philippine recruitment agency, Manumoti Manpower, Edelyn was soon on a flight abroad. She was placed in a house to work for a couple in Taif, in the west of Saudi Arabia.

Continue reading...

‘I want them to feel human again’: the woman who escaped slavery in the UK – and fights to free others

Posted on by

Analiza Guevarra ended up in a living hell in London after fleeing poverty in the Philippines. Now, her organisation rescues scores of people in domestic servitude every year

The streets of west London were dark and empty as Analiza Guevarra walked towards a large, white mansion block in South Kensington in February 2019.

Just after 5am, she stood at a corner, well away from any street lights. “I’m here,” she tapped into her phone. Seconds later, her phone pinged back. “I’m coming, I’m carrying a green bag. Please wait for me.”

Continue reading...

Hungary’s LGBT protests and Juneteenth Day: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

Posted on by

A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms from China to Colombia

Continue reading...

Alone in Oman: Covid worsens abuse for trafficked women

Posted on by

Women from Sierra Leone tricked into servitude find themselves sold on under Gulf’s kafala system

Isha knew she was in trouble when her passport was snatched from her hands. The 27-year-old from Sierra Leone had just arrived in the Omani capital, Muscat, believing she was to start a well-paid job at a restaurant. Instead, her recruitment agent bundled her into a car and drove her to a house where she was told she would be working as a live-in maid.

“My agent told me he could take my passport because he had bought me,” she says. “I was confused. How can you buy a human being?”

Continue reading...

Day off denied: how Covid confined Hong Kong’s domestic ‘helpers’

Posted on by

Many migrant women have been cooped up in employers’ homes for months, unable to take time off or travel to families

On Sundays Hong Kong’s migrant domestic workers traditionally gather in their thousands in the city’s public spaces to enjoy their day off.

Congregating in shopping malls and parks or at bus stations, they take mats to sit on and crowd around rice cookers, sharing meals. “Mini villages pop up everywhere,” says Karen Grépin, associate professor at the University of Hong Kong.

Continue reading...

‘They have to be punished’: the mothers trapped in the UAE by ‘love crimes’

Posted on by

Single migrant women left destitute by Covid can’t leave until they have served sentences for sex outside marriage – but virus restrictions mean prisons won’t accept them

When Reyna* took a taxi to Al-Awir prison in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, she was hoping to turn herself in and be admitted as an inmate. The former domestic worker from the Philippines had brought her three-month-old son along with her.

Reyna lost her job during the pandemic; she can no longer pay for their rent or food and wants to return to her homeland. But in order to be permitted to leave the UAE she must first serve a jail sentence for having sex outside marriage, which is illegal under the country’s Islamic laws.

Continue reading...

The forgotten victims of the Beirut explosion: domestic workers | Nesrine Malik

Posted on by

Dumped on the streets after Covid-19 hit, hundreds of nannies are now starving amid the ruins of last month’s blast

It is just over a month since the Beirut port explosion, and the footage from that day remains as shocking as it was when it first began to appear on our TV screens and social media. In fragments of video, the world saw Beirut life freeze in confusion at the unfamiliar sound of the explosion, then shatter as its impact hit. Among those bits of film we saw one scene, captured on domestic CCTV, that was replicated across the city – an African nanny instinctively scooping children up out of harm’s way, and protecting them with her body.

Related: Beirut's devastating blast has not shaken the ruling class's grip on Lebanon | Gilbert Achcar

Continue reading...

‘For the lives of our mothers’: Covid-19 sparks fight for maids’ rights in Brazil

Posted on by

Millions of domestic workers have been told to keep working or been laid off without pay. Now their families are fighting back against a ‘structurally racist’ system

For as long as Juliana França can remember, on weekdays her mother, Caterina, has made the four-hour round bus trip from the working-class area of Baixada Fluminense, outside Rio de Janeiro, to the city’s affluent South Zone to work as a maid.

But when Covid-19 arrived in Brazil, França begged her to stay at home.

Continue reading...

Pandemic raises fears over welfare of domestic workers in Lebanon

Posted on by

Covid-19 lockdown could leave migrant workers across Middle East confined to employers’ households without pay, NGOs warn

  • Coronavirus – latest updates
  • See all our coronavirus coverage

    • Calls by NGOs for increased protection of domestic workers in Lebanon during the coronavirus crisis have cast a spotlight on the predicament of migrant workers across the Middle East, many of whom are highly vulnerable to the pandemic and without support.

    In parts of the Levant, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia, workers from south and south-east Asia account for a large proportion of labour forces. Closed airports, bonded labour, or other forms of unbreakable employment contracts, and little access to funds, have made it close to impossible for those who want to leave to do so.

    Continue reading...

    ‘They see us as slaves’: Kenyan women head for the Gulf despite abuse fears | Jillian Keenan and Njeri Rugene

    Posted on by

    Kenyan government reforms promise to make domestic work safer in a region notorious for labour trafficking – but are they working?

    In a busy recruitment agency in Nairobi’s central business district, dozens of women line the halls. All hope that today they will secure a job as a domestic worker in the Gulf states, cooking, cleaning and caring for another family thousands of miles from their own homes.

    Pamela Mbogo* is one of them. The 29-year-old has found a job in Saudi Arabia starting next month. It’s not her first time as a domestic worker. On the previous occasion she lived and worked for a family in Bahrain, where she was abused and locked inside the house for days at a time. Yet, this time, Mbogo believes it will be different.

    Continue reading...

    How Hong Kong maids became caught in a ‘humanitarian tsunami’

    Posted on by

    Migrant workers who become pregnant by their employers face dismissal, homelessness and a swift return home

    The sun had not yet risen in Hong Kong when Sally*, a domestic worker, was woken and told she needed to leave immediately. As she lay on the sofa, confused, Sally saw her employer standing over her with a piece of paper he wanted her to sign. It was a resignation letter he had written for her. She was being let go because she was pregnant. Her employer, a German man in his 50s, is the father of the child.

    Sally, 39, from Manilla in the Philippines, is one of the 390,000 domestic workers – mainly from poorer Asian countries – who keep Hong Kong functioning. One in every 20 employees in Hong Kong is a migrant worker, and most of these are women of child bearing age.

    Continue reading...

    ‘It’s a very big torture’: the children growing up in hiding in Dubai | Katie McQue

    Posted on by

    With sex outside marriage punishable by jail, migrant workers who become pregnant are often forced to keep their babies locked away

    A sweltering, windowless room in an old district of Dubai, no more than 5 metres by 3 metres in size, is home to nine people from the Philippines. Eight are adults, working long hours in low-paid jobs so they can send money home to their families. The ninth is a six-year-old boy.

    His name is Jerry and he shares a tiny bed with his mother, Neng. Jerry loves dancing, Peppa Pig and doughnuts. This small dark room is the only home he has known, as he’s spent his life in hiding as a stateless child. Growing up without a birth certificate or any other identification means he has no access to education and has never visited a doctor. Officially, this little boy does not exist.

    Continue reading...