Kwtia

"Alice was 25 when she left her job in Manila, the Philippines. She is a qualified civil engineer, yet her salary was not enough to pay for her four brothers and sisters to go through school. When she saw an advert offering well-paid posts as civil engineers in Kuwait, she contacted the recruitment agency immediately. She had to pay half the agency's fees up front, agreeing to repay the rest on taking up her position. But when she arrived in Kuwait she was told to sign a contract to work as a domestic servant. The agency refused to allow her to return to the Philippines, insisting that she take up the post and pay them the money she owed."(stophumantraffic.org)

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"Philippine Labour Attaché Leopoldo de Jesus revealed that the number of runaway maids during the past two months reached 260...

..Of around 73,000 Filipinos working in this country over 40,000 are engaged in household services. Many of them, however, have been experiencing mistreatments and abuses from their sponsors. "(Kuwait Times)

"Two million Asian maids are subjected to physical abuse, beating, sexual harassment, rape in Gulf states" (Middle east News)

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"Kuwait is issuing new regulations to improve working conditions for more than 400,000 Asian domestic servants...the law would stipulate a minimum wage, a weekly rest-day, a limit on working hours and payment of overtime"(Jazeera)

Number of years that these standards have been international law:

Minimum Wage-Fixing Machinery Convention, 1928

Forty-Hour Week Convention, 1935

Protection of Wages Convention, 1949

Minimum Wage Fixing Convention, 1970

Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions) Convention, 1975

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The International Labour Organization (ILO) regulations recommend the following with regard to work conditions:

• limit the hours of domestic workers by specifying:
  -a forty hour work week, with adequate remuneration for overtime work;
  -the specification of the maximum hours of work permitted per day;
  -a fixed uninterrupted rest period of eight hours per day;
  -a limition on the hours spent "on call" and adequate remuneration for those hours;
• ensure that minimum wage laws and regulations apply to domestic workers and that domestic workers are included within the minimum wage fixing system, having due regard to the general level of wages in the country, the cost of living, social security benefits, the relative living standards of other social groups and economic factors;

(From HRW report about Abuse In Saudi Arabia)

Reports and articles to look at:

• BAD DREAMS:Exploitation and Abuse of Migrant Workers in Saudi Arabia (Human Rights Watch)
• Indonesia's abused migrant workers

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"On July 1, 2003, the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families* will enter into force. Its primary objective is to protect migrant workers, a particularly vulnerable population, from exploitation and the violation of their human rights...

...At present, the impact of the Convention remains limited, given that it has not been ratified by countries in either Europe or North America, where nearly 60% of the world’s migrants live (56 and 41 million respectively), nor by other major receiving countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan, Israel, Japan or Australia." (UNESCO)

Abuse happens worldwide, including in Europe and the US, but this is about abuse here because we live here..and it's shameful.