Advocates Warn Africans of a New Human Trafficking Hot Spot
The promise of a domestic worker job in the United Arab Emirates was so lucrative that one impoverished young Bangladeshi woman did what so many others do: She scraped together $800 to give to a recruitment agency to place her.
But once the woman, identified as Asma K. by Human Rights Watch, was in the UAE, it wasn’t long before she was sold across the porous border with Oman, landing in a new hot spot for human trafficking, according to the rights group. Once there, she was forced to work for 21 hours a day, starved, and abused—an outcome that advocates say is typical of the sultanate’s abusive kalafa (sponsorship) system, which binds staff to their employers, even after the terms of their contract are met and despite abuses.
There are at least 130,000 female migrant domestic workers—from Uganda, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka—working in Oman, according to HRW, which has raised concerns that many end up trapped with abusive employers in exploitative conditions.
Migrant workers make up more than 88 percent of Oman’s private sector workforce, and nearly a quarter of families in the nation hire domestic workers, according to the country’s official statistics.
“There are families who are not so wealthy, but the demand and expectation [is] that you, as a family, have to have a domestic worker like you have a washing machine,” Rothna Begum, HRW’s Middle East women’s rights researcher, told TakePart.
In Asma’s case, she was told that she was purchased for $4,052, and she could buy her freedom. But instead she was sold to another family who she says gave her only leftover food and tormented her verbally and physically. After her employer tried to slash her with a knife, Asma fled the country.
Recently, the number of workers going to Gulf states from African countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia, and Uganda has increased, with the high rates of unemployment in those countries being one factor in the migration. Uganda is said to have the continent’s highest level of youth unemployment, with up to 83 percent of young people jobless, while in Kenya the figure is reportedly 70 percent, and in Ethiopia it’s 50 percent.
In July Interpol issued a warning that at least 10 Ugandan women working in Gulf countries have died violently, despite the Ugandan government’s legislation banning citizens from working as housemaids abroad, which passed in January.
Less than a year later, Pius Bigirimana of Uganda’s labor ministry told Take Part leaders are reconsidering the ban, which has proved difficult to enforce. He also sees merit in allowing work, if it is guaranteed to be free from abuse.
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“In particular our concern is these young girls who are employed as domestic workers. Some of them are sexually abused. Others are forced to do work which is beyond what they agreed to do. So we have put a temporary ban on domestic workers [traveling abroad],” Bigirimana said. “The moment we are satisfied that these house girls are going to be safe, then agreements will be signed, and people will go, because they need labor.”
It’s tough to ensure such safety. There is no diplomatic mission from Uganda to Oman, and Begum stresses that “women who want to migrate will do so through unregulated channels.” There aren’t any controls in place at the airport, for example, to stop them from leaving.
Ads for such work still appear regularly in newspapers in Uganda. In mid-July, Middle East Consultants Limited placed an ad in the Ugandan tabloid Red Pepper seeking “cashiers, cooks, waiters, waitresses and stewards” to work in Abu Dhabi and Dubai for nearly $900 a month, along with free airfare and visas.
The women who respond to such ads often find themselves struggling to alert authorities that they are in trouble. One Ugandan salon worker ended up being rescued from Abu Dhabi through Ugandan nongovernmental organization Justice for African Workers Campaign. To protect her privacy, she is identified here as Fatima N.
Now home in Uganda and having just given birth to a baby she conceived while in Dubai, she told Take Part there are “so many women” still wanting to go to the Gulf “because they’ve never heard the horror stories.”
Even after being abused in Gulf countries, some women are left so destitute after returning home that Begum says they try to migrate again, hoping things will be different the next time.
In its report “I Was Sold”: Abuse and Exploitation of Migrant Domestic Workers in Oman, HRW calls on Oman to reform its kafala system and laws according to international standards and treaties. It also called on the Arab state to work with nations of origin to prevent, investigate, and prosecute alleged abuses, among other measures.
Meanwhile, HRW recommends that countries of origin arm domestic workers with information on their rights and Oman’s legal framework and legal aid services. It also calls for more official reporting of abusive bosses and agencies to the Omani authorities.
African countries need to band together to push for improved protections for domestic workers going to the Gulf states, Begum said.
“Insisting on these as a cohort of states would be more effective than individual bans every now and then,” she said.