Are Maids Being Enslaved Here?
Muna Al-Fuzai
Recently, I met an expat lady and while we were chatting about life in Kuwait and my field of writing, I asked her what she thinks of Kuwait and how has her think ing about the country and the entire Middle East been impacted over the ten years that she has lived here.
She said she thinks of the system of housemaids in Kuwait as more a form of slavery. I agreed with her that a lot needed to be done on this issue and that I do not blame her for considering the sponsorship system like a sort of any slavery system. We pay money to bring the maid from her home countr y and use a recruitment agency for the purpose.
It is almost a slavery system with a different name since the mission is clearly spelt out: a human being is brought from his or her country for a certain amount of money and for such time till the sponsor agrees to let him or her return home. The maids have a price list based on their nationality, and it sounds so much like common sense at any recruitment agency.
The maids are sometimes forced to wear what is given to her by the sponsor and I am surprised to see that some sponsors force their non-Muslim maids to wear a hejab (head scarf). She can also be taken to the house of sponsor 's relatives if the sponsor was to go on leave overseas or she may have to accompany them as well.
Whether she consents to join this new family or not is not of much concern to anyone. Why would any sponsor think of taking the maid with him while travelling abroad unless he has a sick family member or children who need to be looked after? For a maid, travelling with the sponsor and his family is also work and possibly involves more pressure because she has to bear the full responsibility for the family, often all alone, as in Kuwait she can at least have some more staff to help her.
This lady that I was chatting with also said the maids are not given a regular weekly day off. She is right though some sponsors do so, but certainly not all. The problem is that the maid's offs are dependent upon the sponsor's kindness and not factored into the rules of the contract. I think this issue needs further analysis.
As much as we need new rules, we also need to follow up and enforce the laws against those who treat the maids as slaves and not as workers. It is a long road that we need to traverse, and while my meeting with this lady was over, the subject would come back to haunt all of us for a long time to come.
By Muna Al-Fuzai
muna@kuwaittimes.net
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