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stories of shame On March 26, there were about 30 women, all housemaids. "Sometimes there are more, sometimes there are less. We also have a few Sri Lankan garment workers who come to church," says Sister Concy, a Sri Lankan nun who has been in Jordan for the past four years. The women crack jokes, swap stories and find out what's happening back home. There is camaraderie but it masks the real problems facing hundreds of Sri Lankan workers in Jordan. Many of the 40,000 housemaids are undergoing hardships in Jordanian homes. Forced to work long hours and sleep on kitchen floors, they are routinely beaten and sometimes subjected to sexual harassment. Housemaids often don't receive their wages on time or not at all, forcing the Sri Lankan embassy here to intervene most of the time. A tactic used by unscrupulous job agents here in connivance with employers is to shuttle housemaids from house to house for 3-4 month periods without paying them. There have been attempted suicides and deaths of housemaids. On the flip side, however, Sri Lankan maids are partly to blame for the trouble. "They come here hoping for an easier life and are disappointed when it is not so," says Sister Ursula, a German nun who is working with Sister Concy. "They are clueless about what lies in store for them in Jordan. These women come here and cry for their babies. They are very homesick. They shouldn't be here in the first place." We meet at the church at Jabel Wabhe, a mainly Christian locality off a hilly street in the capital. Some 10 to 12 percent of Jordanians are Christians. Father Christy Fernando, who conducts the weekly mass, came here a year ago as the first full-time Sri Lankan priest. "Earlier priests came during Christmas or Easter from Colombo. However a Sri Lankan group of workers who organised prayer meetings requested the church to send a full-time priest a year ago," he said. Most of the women attending mass have been in Jordan for many years and mainly work part-time, a phenomenon not known to many Sri Lankans back home. Those attending regular mass don't come from homes where they are live-in domestics who are rarely permitted free time or allowed to go out on their day off (Friday). In fact, according to unofficial statistics, some 50 percent of the Sri Lankan women are part-time workers who have run away from the homes they first came to serve-forced by constant harassment or tempted by friends to seek freedom, independence and a chance to make more money. Women make more money from part-time work in homes for about 2-3 hours a day. But their new freedom has snared them in a never-ending trap. Some of them are likely to remain in Jordan for years. These women get friendly with male workers of other South Asian origin - Pakistanis or Bangladeshis - and become their live-in partners. They live in dingy tenement houses and sometimes have children, while their families in faraway Sri Lanka are unaware of what is going on in Jordan. Some have been here for many years without visiting home. Their return - even for a holiday - is also restricted as they work on either temporary or false work permits. Some get into prostitution to supplement their income. A big Sri Lankan mafia operates here and in some cases, as I discovered, Jordan is also a route to Italy for Sri Lankans seeking to migrate to the west illegally. Like most Middle East countries, Jordan is no exception when it comes to the life of a Sri Lankan housemaid. There is the good, bad and ugly side of domestic work. Quite a few women have good, decent employers like W.M. Mary from Bingiriya who came here in 2003 and is very happy. She gets US$ 100 a month and looks after a 75-year- old woman. "There is very little work, in fact just a few hours a week. I have no problems here. Soap and towels are provided," she said, adding that relatives of the old lady pay the bills. Mary is among a group of Sri Lankan women who are providing an unofficial support system for the not-so-lucky housemaids. "There is this girl from Anuradhapura who is suffering here. She came to Jordan seven months ago. About five months ago, she fell down the steps and her legs have swelled since then. She was not taken to hospital but asked to work despite her disability. Since then the agent has sent her to seven houses to work without pay. She wants to return to Sri Lanka but has no money,” Mary explains. Charlotte Perera and Sriyalatha Perera have been in Jordan since the early 1980s and are happy. Charlotte works at the German Cultural Institute while Sriyalatha, who has also worked in Dubai and Kuwait, is comfortable in the home she works. They too are part of the unofficial support system that helps maids in distress, give them food and speak on their behalf. "Sir ... please write about the plight of our nangis. They are suffering here," one veteran housemaid pleaded as we chatted on a ledge just outside the church. I was unable to speak to the victims themselves as they are rarely allowed out of their homes and only the two nuns - who to many are like 'angels for distressed workers' - occasionally visit homes to have a chat with an employer and meet the housemaid. "We are trying to build a kind of relationship with employers and in this way minimize the harassment a housemaid may face," said Sister Ursula. Another issue that puzzles the two nuns is that most Jordanians prefer Christian housemaids, resulting in Buddhist women from Sri Lanka falsely saying they are Christians on the work applications in Colombo. "Women being somewhat illiterate, falsely say they are Christians at the insistence of the job agents who often don’t explain why or give a vague explanation," said Sister Ursula. The duo discovered this when visiting homes and found some housemaids wearing the cross. "I knew these are Buddhists and wondered why they should be wearing the cross," noted Sister Concy. One of the maids told her the reason and pleaded with her not to reveal this to her employer. The nuns use an effective tactic to talk to housemaids. While Sister Ursula distracts the "madam" - during a visit -, Sister Concy talks to the Sri Lankan housemaid in her mother tongue. "It's sad and pathetic - their plight," Sister Concy said. "Utter slavery," pipes in Marina Wijeratne, another veteran housemaid, who hails from Matale who has worked here for 18 years. Marina speaks about a young girl who is forced to work for two houses while receiving the promised minimum wage of 40 Jordanian Dinars (US$80) for one household. "She doesn't get enough food. I help her with some food. She works from 5.30 a.m. to 2 the next morning and looks after a baby too. The madam locks the refrigerator when she goes out." Housemaids are frightened to complain to the police when conditions are unbearable because it is the employer's word that is often accepted. Prisons are in a terrible state, according to workers. One woman, jailed for a couple of weeks, didn't even have a change of clothing during her menstrual cycle. She was forced to remain in blood-stained clothes. The victims are also reluctant to complain, fearing they would lose their jobs and have their wages withheld. "They have no rights or don't know their rights," said Sister Ursula. "We tell them to go back and not come again. But they often don't listen." Jordanian households have domestics from Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Indonesia with Filipino workers commanding much higher wages because they are more educated - some are even graduates - and can speak English. The Filipinos are also more organised and take care of themselves through an effective self-help group system. Whenever a new maid arrives in the city, this group welcomes the new arrival and together meets the sponsor and makes sure she has settled down in her workplace. Sri Lankans on the other hand get the "leftover" jobs in the housemaids' industry. Ban women with infants. That's the plea from the two nuns. "We appeal to the Sri Lankan government not to permit women with infants to take up overseas job. These women come here and cry for their babies. They are very homesick. It's a pathetic sight. Also young girls should not be sent. It ruins their young life for ever," noted Sister Concy. The two "angels" suggest that village women should be informed - many months before they decide to find a job as a housemaid overseas - by experienced counsellors that it is often a life of misery on the other side. "They should be informed about life in a foreign household - the pros and cons - and then asked to make a choice. They should be given this information," said Sister Ursula. Workers should be encouraged to take jobs in the homes of diplomats or officials working in UN agencies. These housemaids receive $350-$400 a month compared to the housemaids’ basic wage of $80, and are more comfortable. The dilemma of Sri Lankans seeking jobs as housemaids in the Middle East is that the authorities here -unlike in India, Pakistan or Bangladesh - can't enforce a ban on women working overseas. A ban on women working as housemaids overseas would not only be a violation of one's basic right but would also deprive them of much-needed cash to supplement the family income, build that dream house or collect a dowry for the daughter. Having encouraged women - who hitherto were basically housewives with no income - to earn money as housemaids in the Gulf since the early 1970s, it is impractical now to stem the flow particularly since not all of the housemaids overseas have problems. Like the gold rush in the West many decades back, rural women are lining up for jobs as housemaids despite the hardships of leaving behind young children, pawning the little jewellery they have or mortgaging their land to pay for "unofficial" agency fees and other expenses. Many of the women who return home on holiday or on completion of their contract often don't tell their families or even close friends about the problems they may have encountered in the workplace. As a result, village communities know little about the hardships of working overseas as domestics - unless a family member or someone in the community has returned with a health problem or has a non-payment of wages issue. The government in the meantime plays ducks and drakes with the Middle East job industry - promoting it as an easy foreign exchange money spinner while at the same time making feeble attempts to talk to labour-receiving countries to minimize the problems. Government-to-government contracts hardly work as the laws that exist in those countries are different to ours. For example what happened to the job contracts that labour-receiving governments, job agents, employers and the employee were supposed to sign? No one talks about that anymore. Changes come and go whenever a new official or chairman is appointed to the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment (SLBFE). The government gloats about the foreign exchange from remittances but does little to improve the status of workers or minimise the social upheaval caused by the often, sudden departure of young mothers. Fortunately, a rash decision to provide uniforms to migrant workers making them stick out like a sore thumb at the Colombo airport, appears to have been abandoned. The crises in the homes of mothers who go to the Middle East are too numerous and painful to enumerate here. It’s
no haven Outside the entrance to the building, an armed Jordanian guard sits inside a shelter. Along with a Jordanian colleague, I pressed the doorbell thrice but there was no response. I was not sure whether it even worked. We then walked to another gate that is open on the other end of the building, and went down a flight of steps and turned into a door where there is an officer behind an "unfriendly" grilled window. This is where all visitors to the mission are first entertained - at least we were. Visitors are then escorted by an embassy employee to the main entrance - through the outside route. There are no boards-a basic need if initial access is not through the front door-to indicate that visitors should go down a flight of steps out in the open to the "reception" - and not through the main entrance. Making
life easier for migrant workers It may be useful to consider reducing the financial resources/staff at the Bureau of Foreign Employment and diverting that money/staff to overseas missions. There are a million workers overseas and locating one/two labour officers in a country that handles 200,000-300,000 workers just doesn't work. Set up "informal" support systems like the Filipino example in labour-receiving countries which would help workers in a crisis. The Jordanian example where the two nuns have such a system is a good example to follow. These nuns should be commended for their dedication as they even wash the clothes of migrant workers who have been hospitalized. It would have been helpful if the labour officer at the Sri Lankan mission in Jordan also attends these Friday sessions as many issues and concerns are discussed there. On the Friday that I was present, many workers came rushing to meet me to explain their problems and concerns about others. The trade union movement in Jordan and also Bahrain is powerful and has good contacts with Sri Lankan garment workers. In countries where there are trade unions, these institutions could be used to help Sri Lankan housemaids. There is also a need for a comprehensive 2-3 day roundtable discussion in Colombo on all elements of the Middle East job markets by concerned non-government agencies. It must be a joint effort with government involvement at policy level. A strategy has to be adopted whereby workers are made aware about the various issues relating to knowledge of language, culture, housework, use of appliances, labour rights, wage rights, etc. They should also be told months in advance - even before they make a decision to take an overseas job - about the pitfalls and dangers of leaving young children behind; creating a support system overseas; and locating "friendly and compassionate" officers in our missions. It wouldn't be a bad idea to provide a brief training in counselling to labour officers overseas. |
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