The Protection of Female Migrant Domestic Workers in the Middle East and Asia Pacific

By: Endang Sugiyarto

Millions of labour migrants from developing countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka try to escape poverty and a lack of job opportunities at home by working abroad. Many end up in Middle Eastern destinations such as Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait. Others go to Asia Pacific countries including Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Brunei Darussalam and Japan. In addition to getting jobs for themselves, they send money home to help their families survive day-to-day life, to finance education and healthcare and to invest in a variety of ways. Thus they contribute to the economies of both the destination countries and their countries of origin which benefit from regular inflows of remittances. As a result, migration has become increasingly important to migrants and their families and to sending and host countries.

Many of the migrants work as domestic workers, a sector that is dominated by women due to the nature of the work and by the demands of the receiving countries. Many of them have low educational levels and insufficient skills to carry out the work expected by the employers. The lack of appropriate good quality training makes the matter worse. On top of these they face additional challenges such as different languages, cultures, laws, common practice, and other day-to-day aspects of life in the home of their employers.

The potential pitfalls of such working arrangements are obvious. It is common for a domestic worker to accidently destroy clothes while doing laundry and/or ironing due to a lack of training. The costs associated with such accidents can be high. If the atmosphere in the house is calm the consequences of mishaps can be minimal. But in a home that is hectic and full of tensions a small accident can easily flare up into an incident of abusive domestic violence. And if such incidents are repeated the situation can turn into one of habitual domestic abuse that is worsened by its location inside the home where there can be no third party and/or community scrutiny.

Moreover, the nature of the work that must be done in the employer’s property and the fact that the domestic worker has to live there too, leads to extended working hours and puts the worker in a very vulnerable situation. It is even worse when incidents happen in large secured houses or private apartments which offer no opportunities for the workers to interact with others. Reports of domestic workers being treated like slaves and suffering physical and sexual abuse sometimes conclude with them suffering permanent injuries, depression and even death.

Newspaper reports of a series of incidents involving Indonesian migrant domestic workers in the Middle East and Asia Pacific give a shocking insight into the severity of some of the abuse:

·         In 2004, Nirmala Bonat, working in Malaysia, suffered burns to her chest and back from a hot iron and was scalded after boiling water was poured over her body;

·         In 2005, Nur Miyati, working in Saudi Arabia, had to undergo the amputation of a body part due to infection caused by physical abuse;

·         In 2007, Ceryati, working in Malaysia, was forced to escape through a window of the 15th floor apartment of her employer because she could no longer tolerate the daily physical abuse she was subjected to. Almost her whole body was injured, in particular her forehead was swollen, and her neck and hands badly injured;

·         In 2009, Siti Hajar, working in Malaysia, endured abuse  in the form of beatings and by having boiling water poured on her. She had been with her employer for 34 months but was unable to seek help from others until her escape from the house;

·         Wasiah binti Toha worked in Abu Dhabi in 2009 but received no salary for 8 months. She decided to return home with neither money nor help from the recruiting agency due to the beatings she had endured from the beginning of her employment;

·         Sumiati had to be hospitalised in Saudi Arabia in November 2010 after her employer cut her top lip because she complained about her workload;

·         Erwiana worked in Hong Kong for 8 months in 2013. She had been made to work for 21 hours per day, was kept hungry, and got beaten with a wooden hanger or anything else within the reach of her employer, who eventually fired her and forced her to return home with injuries to her face, hands and legs.

The above list only highlights those cases exposed by the national and international press. These are just the tip of the iceberg. Many more incidences go hidden or unrecorded.

Many domestic workers suffer verbal and physical abuse combined with poor working conditions. More needs to be done to protect them. Many labour exporting countries have signed agreements with receiving countries to guarantee respect for the rights of the migrant workers, but the implementation details must be worked out.

Domestic workers from Indonesia seem to be particularly vulnerable. The high incidence of abuse has led the Indonesian government to declare a moratorium and there is a plan to stop sending domestic workers by 2017. As part of this plan, the government is going create more job opportunities and to educate and train migrant workers to meet the skills requirements of the jobs, as well as to give them knowledge of law and human rights.

Will this be enough? The answer is of course not. First, there should be a bilateral agreement between the sending and receiving countries to guarantee the rights and protection of migrant workers. Second, there should be a practical framework that adopts a rights-based approach to labour migration, emphasising non-discrimination, gender equality, and equality of opportunity for migrant workers, regardless of their immigration status. Third, not only should the workers receive training to help them adapt to the employer’s culture but the employers also need a basic understanding of the culture of their workers to be able to create a common understanding.

Protection of migrant workers must be comprehensive, beginning in their home country prior to departure, continuing throughout the duration of their work in the destination country, and covering them until they return home. Governments of sending countries need to be pro-active, making regular inspections of workplaces and working conditions to ensure the welfare of their migrant workers. All migrants should be given access to their countries representatives, in particular the labour attaches. The discussion above, however, does not take into account migrants in irregular situations, of whom there is a significant number and on whom the adverse impact is even more severe. For them, a more holistic approach is needed, covering the whole migration system, push and pull factors, and the immigration system. Protection of all migrants must be ensured through formal, transparent, and managed migration.

Endang Sugiyarto is a doctoral candidate in Migration Studies at the University of Sussex, funded by the Migrating out of Poverty Research Programme Consortium.

The impact of migrating for domestic work: The experience of Hawa and Adiata

By Collins Yeboah

 

In the migration literature, greater attention is paid to migrant workers than to the households they leave behind. I have come to the realisation, however, that to fully comprehend the impact of migrant domestic workers, in addition to understanding the problems associated with their work, it is essential to examine the changes they bring about for their households of origin.

 

I recently conducted field work for the 'Livelihood Strategies and Wellbeing of Migrants in Low-Paid and Insecure Occupations in Urban Ghana' project, part of the Migrating out of Poverty programme in West Africa. The research team tracked the origin households of migrants engaged in domestic and construction work in Accra via an earlier quantitative survey carried out in Tamale in Ghana's Northern Region. A selection was identified for the in-depth follow up discussions of the qualitative research.

 

We carried out the fieldwork during the scorching sun, dry winds, low humidity and dust of the harmattan season, arriving later than promised one night at the home of Hawa (46) in Walewale, a small town on the road between Bolgatanga and Tamale in Ghana’s Northern Region. Hawa sat behind her sewing machine with pieces of cloth she had cut earlier. She had already finished the two school uniforms brought by her customers that morning and looked tired after the day’s work.

 

Hawa used to be opposed to female migration because of its association with a high level of unwanted pregnancies. But her husband’s death left her alone with six children, in a region with few employment opportunities, so she had to allow her primary school educated daughter Adiata (24) to go to Accra to look for work. The decision to migrate was taken by both Hawa and her daughter. As Hawa noted: “We all decided one evening that she should go to Accra and look for job so she can support the rest of us here.”

 

Studies indicate that women migrant workers often remit a greater proportion of their earnings than low skilled men migrant workers and are often more stable and consistent remitters. Since leaving Walewale Adiata has remitted at least GHc 120 ($34.85) a month to her mother. Hawa said that her daughter sometimes also sends the family clothes and foodstuffs via friends travelling to Walewale. Hawa appears to be doing better than her neighbours. She and her children live in her late husband’s house. Its three rooms are roofed with zinc while the other homes in the neighbourhood are thatched. 

 

“Look at my roof… Hawa said, proudly pointing to her house...she continued “It was thatched previously before by husband died. The little money I receive from Adiata, my daughter in Accra was used to roof it. She has helped a lot. I want to build one house over there from the money she sends before she returns” (Hawa, Walewale).

 

Adiata is one of the many domestic workers in Ghana. Estimates from Ghana’s 2010 Population and Census data indicate that about 66,570 Ghanaians between the ages of 15-64 years are employed in this sector. They work in private homes outside their places of habitual residence. Often referred to as modern day slavery, their duties include cleaning, cooking, looking after children, trimming lawns, and driving cars. They usually lack familiar or community support mechanisms and are often exposed to poor wages, delayed or non-payment of wages, very long hours of work, and no break periods or rest days.

 

However, Adiata is one of the few domestic workers employed under better conditions. When she first arrived in Accra she had a difficult time and slept in a slum shack in Agbogloshi shared with four other female migrants. She became a Kayeyei - a form of manual employment carried out almost exclusively by females in Ghana involving the transportation of goods on their heads to and from markets - in Agbogloshie market. While in this role she met a woman who first became one of her regular customers, buying food stuffs from Adiata in the market. She later employed Adiata in her home as a domestic worker and Adiata now lives in her home. For Adiata, employment as a domestic worker is far better than the situation she found herself in when she first arrived in Accra.

 

Many studies portray the kind of work done by domestic workers as demeaning, dirty and exploitative. Yet as I listened to Hawa and other mothers like her, I realised that the story of Adiata, the domestic worker, provides a powerful illustration of migration as a means of moving out of poverty. Adiata has contributed to the upgrading of her family’s home and money she sends every month is used by her mother to cater for the needs of her other children. It is evident that migration has been pivotal in shaping the family’s lives. Like Adiata, most of the domestic workers from this region have become the breadwinners of their families left behind.

 

Collins Yeboah is Communications Officer at the Centre for Migration Studies at the University of Ghana

Indonesian migrant women: Present 'here' and 'there' via ICTs

By Lucia Zerna


Photograph reproduced by kind permission of Xyza Cruz Bacani 

In the image above, the boy on the right has his faced pressed against the glass. While we see his face clearly, the face of the photographer is hidden by the camera. Who is she?

Xyza Cruz Bacani is a Filipina domestic worker in Hong Kong whose passion for photography inspired her to buy a digital single reflex (DSLR) camera and photograph everyday life in the city. Since posting her black and white images online on Facebook, Bacani has gained international recognition. She currently has more than 7,000 likes on her page. Furthermore, she has recently secured a 2015 fellowship on the Magnum Foundation’s prestigious Human Rights programme, under which she will receive a scholarship that will strengthen her skills in visually documenting human rights. Bacani’s success exemplifies the ways in which migrant domestic workers utilize technology in order to pursue aspirations and connect with the outside world. While the majority of foreign domestic workers (FDWs) in Southeast Asia do not achieve such visibility, many are just as active in using various types of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), such as cellphones.

From the results of the recently completed Migrating out of Poverty study on the ICT use of domestic workers in Singapore, it is apparent that use of such technologies form an integral aspect of the workers’ everyday lives. Handheld computing devices, particularly smartphones, are used by FDWs to establish a presence of both ‘here’ and ‘there’ through phone calls and short message services (SMS) to family members back home. The research found that eighty per cent of respondents in the study relied on SMS and regular phone calls to make contact with their family and friends in Indonesia.

Despite having to care for another woman’s children, FDWs also act as transnational mothers, keeping up with their own children’s wellbeing and education via ICTs. Furthermore, having a sustained line of communication is vital for preserving their mental health in environments that can be exploitive and isolating. As Rosita notes, “if I miss them I can SMS [or] Facebook. I feel happy and in high spirits.”

Additionally, the study shows that through ICTs Indonesian migrant women are able to access information on the global web. For example, Hera, a domestic worker living in Singapore, says: “[I] know more about life here… [About] Indonesian maids or the problems they have. They always upload stuff on Facebook.”

The use of ICTs is one lens through which we can see how power relations are shaped and renegotiated between the employer and domestic worker. As the study found, while ICTs help facilitate vital modes of communication for domestic workers, such devices are not readily accessible to all. Directly related to access are issues of trust, usage restrictions, and surveillance. Many domestic workers only receive a handheld device from their employer after a few years of service. Even then, FDWs are very aware of when and where they use their phones.

Yani, a 42 year-old divorcee, explains: “I know the limitation[s], I know when is the working hours and when is the time to rest. When I am eating or resting, I will call.”

Employers also monitor and curtail FDWs’ access to communication devices. Within the household they hold the password to the Wi-Fi network and may not share it with their FDW. Additionally, FDWs who do not have a phone are dependent on their employer’s devices to contact family back home. In such instances the FDW might limit herself to calling family on specific days and talking for a certain length of time.

It is clear from the research that access to and use of ICTs influence the daily routines of FDWs in Singapore in multifaceted ways. ICTs facilitate new transnational spaces where FDWs can maintain relationships with family back home. Smartphones and similar devices have become vital resources that sustain personal relationships and, in the case of Xyza Cruz Bacani, have been used as platforms for creativity and public recognition. ICTs have provided a site for her and other domestic workers to shape new trajectories and go beyond a singularizing identity of FDW. 

Lucia Zerner is currently an undergraduate spending her spring semester studying abroad in Singapore. She is particularly interested in topics related to labour migration and has most recently conducted an independent study on returned Tamil migrant workers to Madurai, India.