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BEIRUT
(IPS) - The story goes that some years ago, the wife of the Philippines'
ambassador to Lebanon was swimming at a private sports club. The
lifeguard on duty asked her to get out, saying domestic help were
not allowed in the pool.
The ambassador's wife complied, probably too shocked to react.
Whether or not the story is accurate or was a joke does not really
matter. It reflects a type of racism that is widespread in the Arab
world, according to which anyone who is not white is bound to be
a servant.
The situation varies among Arab countries, in some places worse
than others. Everybody agrees that Filipinos are the best off while
Bangladeshis usually get the worst treatment.
In most oil-rich Gulf countries, migrant workers are found in all
sectors of the job market. Too rich to need to work themselves,
Kuwaitis, Saudis, Qataris and others rely on migrant workers to
run the daily business from restaurants to shops and taxis, and
even some public sector jobs.
For some 825,000 Kuwaitis, there are 1.4 million foreign workers.
Some 290,000 Filipinos went to the Middle East to work in 2000,
making it the second leading destination for the 840,000 Filipinos
who leave home each year.
Arab countries represent five of the top 10 host countries for Filipinos,
including Saudi Arabia which is their No 1 destination.
Even less rich countries such as Lebanon and Jordan have thousands
of guest workers. Lebanon has 55,000 registered migrant workers
of which 6,000 are Filipinos, but the real figure is at least double
that because of workers without legal papers.
More than 90 percent of women migrant workers in non-Gulf Cooperation
Countries (GCC) are in domestic work. Most of those countries have
laws that give precedence to locals in employment -- and only jobs
for which no locals are found can be given to foreigners.
Domestic work is shunned by all locals so it is handed over to Asians,
who make up a good number of the migrant labourers.
Ray Jureidini, professor at the department of social and behavioral
sciences of the American University in Beirut, says the working
and living conditions of foreign domestic workers make them modern-day
slaves.
In a study he did, Jureidini established that what characterises
slavery historically applies to domestic workers in Lebanon and
by extrapolation, to the rest of the Arab world. ''There is threat
of violence against them, as well violence and verbal abuse, their
movements are restricted and they are in exploited in their work,"
he says.
Verbal abuse and violence are common in households and can reach
frightening proportions, such as beating, dragging by the hair and
starvation, he adds.
Restrictions of movement often starts at the airport when the foreign
worker's passport is taken away at passport control and handed over
to her employer, who keeps it. Then there are restrictions on her
outings, which are limited to one day per week, or even none at
all.
"Maids
are exploited most of the time. When I asked them what their job
consisted of, their answer was 'everything', cleaning, cooking,
looking after the children. They work up to 18, 20 hours a day,
they don't have their own room to sleep in, they don't have a proper
contract,'' says Jureidini.
He says that unlike the West where domestic workers, whether live-in
or part-time, are hired to allow the women to find paid jobs outside
the home, in the Arab world it is usually to make it easier for
the women to pursue their social lives and activities.
Because of domestic workers' low status, there are also cases of
sexual abuse, mostly in the Gulf. According to experts, domestic
workers are very often viewed as the employer's property and should
thus oblige his needs, whether it is cleaning or sexual satisfaction.
According to local traditions, women need to stay virgin until they
marry. To satisfy their needs, employers' sons often taken it out
on the domestic worker. Because local women are off bounds, there
are also many brothel-like venues in what is known as 'bachelor
houses' in Gulf countries, such as Saudi Arabia.
In the case of physical abuse, Jureidini's most interesting finding
is that whenever domestic workers are beaten, they are generally
hit by the 'madam', as the mistress is referred to.
Part of the problem is the lack of proper legal protection for the
workers.
Employment agencies are the first to contribute to miserable working
conditions through contracts that spell out more duties than rights,
exorbitant sums requested from the employee to fly her to the guest
country and provide her with a job that is often not what she was
promised.
According to those involved in helping the migrant workers in their
host countries, the agencies are also often at the centre of rings
of prostitution.
Discrimination against migrant workers starts in the laws of the
guest countries, and there is usually very little tolerance in Muslim
countries toward those of other religions and beliefs.
Foreigners are subjected to the same laws, at times applied with
more seriousness. In Saudi Arabia, some 300 Asians have been executed
in the past nine years.
There are different types of visas for migrant workers in Kuwait,
'visa 18' for general work and 'visa 20' for domestic workers. 'Visa
20' means workers are not protected by labour law but are under
the jurisdiction of the ministry of interior.
If a domestic worker gets pregnant out of wedlock, she is deported
immediately. Very often, the employer himself got the domestic worker
pregnant, but she still has to pay for the consequences.
If a married couple of domestic workers have a baby, the child is
also sent out of Kuwait almost immediately after birth.
These double standards in the law, found also in other labour-receiving
countries, is something activists want removed on the basis that
migrants do not lose their human rights when they go to a foreign
land.
''The starting point is that migrant workers are human beings, not
commodities,'' explains Malou Alcid of the Manila-based Kanlungan
Centre for Migrant Workers. ''They sell their labour, not their
dignity and humanity. They are in labour-importing countries because
the economy needs them.''
But ''globalisation renders migrant workers economically necessary
but socially undesirable,'' Alcid adds.
Meantime, Filipino women in Kuwait who get caught in prostitution
rings, or opt for it because of the money, are usually considered
high-class sex workers. One Kuwait man said they are highly prized
because their skin color is lighter than other Asians, they are
educated and speak English.
In Lebanon, there was a trend of massage parlours where Filipino
women would provide massages and 'some extra', but many have been
busted by the vice squad. Tales of working conditions in them were
dire, to the extent that women risked their lives trying to escape,
jumping out windows and cares.
In Lebanon, no laws forbid migrant workers to have a child, even
outside wedlock. But while there are no deportations, it is very
difficult to get a birth certificate and legalise the child's presence
in the country.
Many women come to the Afro Asian Migrant Worker Centre in Beirut
when they get pregnant, either after they were raped or after a
relationship with a boyfriend who left them.
At the centre, Sister Amelia from the Philippines welcomes them
all but has a few conditions: no abortions, no selling of the baby
and a pledge to take care of the child. When she receives a phone
call from a girl who is being ''touched by Sir'', her advice is
to run away immediately, even without papers, and to come to the
centre.
In countries where religious freedoms are protected, such as Kuwait,
Lebanon, Jordan, the Catholic Church plays an important role in
the life of overseas workers, mainly Filipinos, most of whom are
Catholic.
But the lack of protection for domestic workers in the Arab world
and the abuses this leads to, is actually a worldwide problem, since
domestic work is part of the informal work sector and not recognised
anywhere as a full-fledged paid job.
''This is part of the larger struggle to recognise housework done
by women at home,'' says Mary Kawar of the International Labour
Organisation in Beirut. ''Since the work of domestic help is considered
an extension of the wife's work, they are also not protected by
labour law, anywhere in the world.''
The ILO is conducting studies in several Arab countries to establish
where the abuses lie and how to address them. Whatever their recommendations,
it will not be easy to convince guest countries to implement them.
Experts see several reasons for this: Human rights records in the
region are dire and labour laws are far from ideal for locals. For
countries to consider improving the working conditions of foreign
workers, they should first be convinced to improve the lives of
their own people. (Inter Press Service)
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