We have discussed the issue of housemaids so many times that we have got bored and tired of it.
A housemaid arrives in the country with a three-month guarantee via an agency. Many of these women are not qualified. After paying dearly, a sponsor is helpless when the maid refuses to work and the guarantee expires.
If the sponsor forces the maid to work, he would be violating her human rights. And if he gives in and sends her back home, his financial interests are harmed. He has paid QR10,000 for a two-year contract, in addition to airline tickets. What about his rights?
If he asks her to continue working for him, she can run away. In that case he would have to pay for her deportation. Or she might even fake a suicide attempt so that the sponsor has to take her to a hospital. Then she leaves for her home county at his expense.
Both, running away from a sponsor and attempted suicide, are felonies under Qatari law. But the way the law is enforced creates problems for sponsors.
When a sponsor files a lawsuit against a runaway maid or a servant for attempted suicide, the defendants are released pending trial to stay at his residence. How can the sponsor ensure that the maid does not escape or try to commit suicide again? He would also fear revenge as the maid may get back at his family.
Therefore, the sponsor has to give up his rights and pay for her airline ticket or he would be blacklisted, barring him from getting any visas in future, as if he were a criminal!
If the maid is hospitalised for attempted suicide, the state pays QR1,500 per day. Of course, maids do not suffer from psychological problems. The huge number of maids at mental clinics is evidence of that.
It is as if these maids have a formula: If you don’t like to work and the sponsor refuses to send you home, just scratch your wrist or drink an antiseptic solution and the sponsor would then have to send you home out of fear.
An unsavoury aspect of this issue is maids having affairs with foreign men at their sponsor’s residence.
This is against our religion, customs and tradition. The sponsor faces injustice again if he presses charges against the maid. She would remain at his home for months during the trial.
He has to treat her kindly and take care of her financially until the trial is over. He also has to pay for her ticket if she is deported and pay QR10,000 to get another housemaid. This is not to mention the psychological cost and the cost of training the maids.
How can this issue be solved? How can we protect our own rights as well as theirs?
If sponsored workers run away, attempt suicide or fornicate, why shouldn’t they be arrested and kept in police custody until the trial ends, instead of staying at the sponsor’s house?
Penalising criminals will discourage others from perpetrating the same crimes. Those who do not fear punishment will go on committing crimes. Maids are aware that their maximum punishment would be deportation, which is what they want.
If they know that they would be jailed without pay, maids would not breach the law. They should pay back the sponsor all the costs plus a reasonable compensation. If they do not have money for that, they should be jailed. They are no better than Qatari citizens, who also get jailed for financial crimes.
Labourers and maids are not the only human beings; the citizens are humans, too.
