CAIRO: To mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women Tuesday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the international community to stop the abuse of domestic help especially in the Middle East and Asia.
The New York-based organization blamed governments and judicial systems for failing to protect domestic workers, especially foreigners.
HRW said that female Asian domestic workers are excluded from protection provided by labor laws in most countries in the Middle East and some Asian countries.
Countries such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon are among the worst Middle Eastern countries in terms of domestic worker abuse. While authorities receive thousands of abuse complaints each year, little is being done to prosecute abusers, the report said.
In 2008, a court in Riyadh dropped charges against a Saudi citizen who was accused of abusing his female domestic worker despite his confession of doing so.
“There are countless cases of employers threatening, humiliating, beating, raping, and sometimes killing domestic workers, Nisha Varia, deputy director of the women’s rights division of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
According to the report, authorities receive thousands of complaints of labor exploitation or abuse each year. While most involve unpaid wages, food deprivation, and long working hours with no rest, a significant number allege verbal, physical, and sexual abuse. But many cases are never officially reported, due to domestic workers’ confinement in private homes, lack of information about their rights, and employers’ ability to deport them before they can seek help.
Earlier this year, Minister of Manpower and Labor Aisha Abdel Hady was heavily criticized for sealing an agreement with Saudi Arabia that would regulate Egyptian female domestic workers in the country, in what was dubbed the scandal of “exporting maids to Saudi.
Recently, two Egyptian women working at a hair salon in Saudi escaped from their Kafeel (sponsor) and turned to the Egyptian embassy after allegedly being abused and beaten.
Although foreign domestic help is not as widespread in Egypt as it is in other neighboring countries, the local workers suffer poor working conditions, with no laws to protect them in case of abuse as they are not part of labor laws In Egypt.
It is common in cities like Cairo for families to hire teenage girls or even children to be in charge of house chores and to take care of a child not that much younger than these girls. These workers’ paychecks go directly to their parents.
However, this form of child labor doesn’t receive enough attention from women rights activists, but rather falls under a bigger campaign against violence against women.
“We have a general vision towards violence against women and domestic workers’ abuse falls under that, unfortunately we don’t deal with it in a direct way, Mona Ezzat, coordinator of raising the awareness unit at the New Woman Research Center (NWRC), told Daily News Egypt.
“As we strongly condemn the abuse of these [girls] rights, we have human and financial resources enough for the current agenda yet, in the near future we are planning on tackling the issue directly through our campaigns and other activities, Ezzat said.
Yet, the financial factor remains as a favorite justification for sending minors out to work as domestic help.
“Violent acts against female workers are not strange to Egypt, as girls are taken out of school to work and help their parents financially, Sahar Taha, women’s rights activist, told Daily News Egypt.
“These girls are subjected to so many forms of abuse both physically and emotionally and from cases that I saw, they don’t get proper health care, Taha said.
