Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates: A Socio-Legal Study on Conflict
: How many domestic workers are there in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, collectively?
In these two countries together, there are already two million domestic workers.
: What’s in it for women from countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, to go to the Gulf to work?
: You have to consider the fact that about two billion people worldwide have less than a dollar per day, and domestic workers in countries like the Philippines or Indonesia earn about $20 per month doing the same work. So if they go to the Middle East, where they can earn $200 a month, then that’s ten times the salary.
: How do they find these jobs?
: There are recruitment agencies, which are located in the countries of origin in larger cities, and there are middle men who travel across the countryside to find women to work in the Middle East.
: Well, there are some men who wander across the countryside looking for women to work in less savory professions, too. How do these women know what they are getting into?
: Well, the difference between these professions is not perceived as being that large, because actually, people are aware that the sexual abuse of domestic workers in the Middle East is pretty bad. So the difference is not perceived as being that much.
: And what about for the women themselves?
The women themselves simply believe in fate. And they say, ‘Well, it is my fate either to find a good employer, or I will be unlucky and there is nothing I can do about it.’ And they think they don’t have any alternative, because at home, there’s not a job available by which they can earn money. Very often they come from the countryside and they can help out their family on the land, but as the families grow, there is simply not enough land available for the whole family. And the land doesn’t make enough money to buy things in the market, so they can’t send siblings to school, they can’t buy medication. For all these things they need money.
So the family, if it wants to have money, will send one young daughter to the Middle East, and it’s sort of like a sacrifice. Very often, girls know that that is their reason for existing, that’s what they’ve been told all their lives, that they have to go abroad to earn money for their brothers and their fathers.
: Not all of these recruiters are honest, as you point out in your book. Tell me about some of the problems that can occur.
: In the beginning [of my research], it hadn’t occurred to me immediately that the recruiters could be the problem. At first, I was looking at the employers. But after awhile, I started to see that many employers meant well, but the women had been promised other working conditions.
So what I did was I decided to research the recruiters and the agencies in the Middle East to compare the work conditions. So in Manila and Jakarta, I sent somebody into these agencies to pretend to be in search of a job, to see what they would promise her. And basically, they don’t really tell her anything about the work conditions. As soon as she starts to pose questions, they say, ‘Oh, apparently you don’t really want to work.’ And then they start to hesitate over whether to send her to the Middle East. The only thing they say is, ‘Well, if you want a job, you have to stay within the compound now for three months,’ and they just promise her a golden future—very vague and abstract—and they don’t discuss what kind of work, exactly, she’s going to do. They don’t tell her what her salary is going to be. They don’t tell her anything.
Then I went to the Middle East and I pretended to be in search of a domestic worker to see what they would tell the employer. And I was very much in shock—mostly in Saudi Arabia, where they simply told me, ‘She will be your slave for two years.’
: The recruiters?
: They said, ‘this is what happens: You pick her up at the airport and bring her to your home, you lock the door and after two years, you open the door again. And in the meantime, you can do with her whatever you like.’
: What are the kinds of problems that they encounter, these women?
: Well, the average workday is 17 hours, which is an average. And some girls have to work 20 hours and they are simply exhausted. I met women who ran away simply because they couldn’t sleep anymore from being too exhausted. Others are abused, either physically or mentally. I met many women who were sexually abused as well. I met women who were never paid.
The largest problem is that they have no place to turn to for help.
: That was my next question—are there no resources?