I was brought up with stories about William Wilberforce (1759 - 1833), pictured above. His campaign, along with other British abolitionists, led to the outlawing of the slave trade in the British Empire. He died about a month before the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act, yet he saw the beginning of the end of what he, and others, saw as an abhorrent institution.
I wonder how Wilberforce would have reacted to a programme shown on the BBC three days ago - "Maids in Hell:Why Slavery?". It was a disturbing programme that dealt with the treatment of African and Filipina maids in the Middle East - specifically Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Abuse of such workers has been reported before, but this programme conducted some hard-hitting interviews with a Lebanese employment agency ( run by the urbane Maher Dumit),Emma Mburu, a formidable Kenyan senator opposed to the domestic worker trade and some heart-rending interviews with ex-maids who described, in graphic detail, the ill-treatment they had received at the hands of their Middle Eastern employers.
Of course, there are obvious differences between this form of "employment" (called "Kafala") and the slavery system that Wilberforce campaigned to abolish. These domestic maids are, in theory, paid for their services, and their contracts end after about two years. Instead, their passports are confiscated, they are not allowed to change jobs and, in Jordan at least, they are not allowed to have mobile phones.
If this were not bad enough, some (many?) Middle Eastern employers of maids have a habit of expecting far more from the maids than simple domestic duties. Human Rights Watch has described numerous cases of beatings and sexual abuse of maids. Rothna Begum interviewed 19 Tanzanian ex-maids, finding that:
"The women who described sexual harassment and assault said that male family members groped them, exposed themselves, chased them around the house, and entered their rooms late at night. Several described attempted rape. Twenty-year-old “Jamila A.” said all the men in the family she worked for in Oman, “even the old man,” assaulted her and hid her room keys so she could not lock her bedroom door."
The BBC programme showed this to be the tip of a very large iceberg. There are also many complaints of maids being forced to work 18-hour days, with no time off. Many never receive any salary at all. Small wonder, then, 10 000 maids fled from Saudi Arabia last year. No surprise, either, that 67% of domestic workers' deaths in Lebanon are caused by suicide or "falling from buildings". One ex-maid in the BBC programme said that she had risked her life escaping from a third-floor flat, preferring death to servitude at the hands of her employer. That might explain these deaths - 110 in Lebanon in 2016, averaging two a week. Most notorious of such cases is that of Joanna Demafelis, a Filipina who was murdered by her employers in Kuwait, stuffed into a freezer and not found for a year.
Maher Dumit, the agent featured in the programme, passed the comment that if Lebanese people were all bad, no maids would go there at all. An ignorant person might ask "Well, why do they go?". The answer is ludicrously simple. These maids are recruited from the poorest people in Third World countries: Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and the Philippines. In fact, the "recruiters" specialise in attracting the desperate of these lands. To provide for their families, these girls and women are prepared to travel thousands of miles to an uncertain future. That is why all domestic workers in the Middle East are there - to send money home.
The programme ended on a melancholy note. A Kenyan maid, Mary Kibana, a married woman with four children, returned from Jordan with 100% burns. Before she, sadly, passed away, she said that she was caught in a fire in her employer's kitchen. All she remembered next was being found by her employer and kicked. After Mary's funeral, the then Senator Emma Mburu tried contacting a minister in the Kenyan government, who made a politician's answer to her impassioned appeal for action. Mary's family received no back salary and no compensation. Emma Mburu commented: "You feel useless".
A couple of years ago, I felt like that. The programme, rightly, focussed upon this problem at its worst - in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the problem exists right here in the UK, where many wealthy Middle Eastern families own property and, when visiting London, bring their domestic workers with them. They bring their nasty, abusive attitudes to their domestic workers as well. A UK-based group that campaigns for domestic workers brought here was quoted in The Guardian in 2017:
"Kalayaan’s data showed that 85% of domestic workers... reported psychological abuse. In addition, 63% said they had no access to regular food and 81% claimed they were not allowed out of the house; 83% said their employer took their passport, while 33% said they received no wages at all."
This was reported to Kalayaan by domestic workers who escaped from their employers. If accurate, and I have strong personal reasons for believing it to be, we have Middle Eastern slavery right here in London. I have no doubt that this happens in every European capital city and everywhere Middle Eastern employers are domiciled.
I have encountered this awful state of affairs at first hand. Several years ago, we had a runaway Filipina visit us here in Hounslow. She came because a friend of ours, who knew that I was, and remain, a long-standing member of Amnesty International, thought I could help in some way. And this lady - let's call her "Linda" - needed help. She had been brought to the UK by her Middle Eastern employer to work in the family flat in Mayfair. Linda committed some minor misdemeanour and was threatened by her employer. He said that he would punish her severely for her offence (I think she broke a plate) when they returned home. Wisely, Linda escaped with the help of some Filipinos, only to find herself in a dire situation. She had not heard of Kalayaan (neither had I), she had no passport and faced possible deportation to the Philippines, although she had seen a solicitor.
I tried to help. I phoned AI's head office, but they were unable to provide much assistance. As Linda was possibly facing deportation to the Philippines, where she was not at risk of torture or imprisonment, AI could not intervene. They did give me the phone number of the Refugee Council, but could do no more. I reported back to Linda, and her disappointment was palpable. Like Emma Mburu said: "You feel useless". I certainly did.
There is, however, a happy ending. Linda has been allowed to stay in the UK, and is loving it here. After what she has been through, that's no surprise. I could not have secured that for her. I cannot change the dire economic situation that affects so many in the Philippines and Africa, still less can I provide an answer to why so many (not all) Middle Eastern employers are so abusive to domestic workers. The UN condemns this situation, but has little means of taking positive action. In spite of this, I wish I could do more.
One of far too many...
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