by Moiz Mannan
The inhuman treatment of expatriate house maids by employers abroad, their abuse and the exploitation of their being poverty stricken is deplorable and needs to be condemned as well as eliminated at all costs.
Ever so often, the Indian media is agog with hair-raising incidents of brutality against house maids in the Gulf countires. Ministries and diplomats have been seized of the sensitive and often tricky issue of maids fleeing their workplaces and seeking shelter at the Indian missions.
Having said that, the recent spat between Indian and the US over the case of one of its top diplomats, Devyani Khobragade, has raised the question as to whether there is another side to the story. Let’s not go by what sparring diplomats on both sides are saying. Let’s also not get into legal issues such as handcuffing of a diplomat and diplomatic immunity.
It is true that the Indian government or even the Indian mainstream media have seldom before given the centrestage to a common Indian being treated to on foreign land. So let’s also forget about the ‘election-year’ response of the political bigwigs and the muscle flexing by Indian diplomats in their defence of one of their own.
Let’s consider for a moment that Khobragade were also a commoner; an Indian migrant living and working abroad. Hundreds of such employers, all over the world, including in the Gulf, would have a story of a maid who came to be hired with the express intention of ditching the employer for greener pastures. There are many incidents when women, for whatever reason, have agreed to take up employment as a domestic help only to slip away and gain residency, albeit illegal, of the host country. Many such individuals are even known to have earned themselves a green card after rebelling against their sponsors.
There have been cases in the Gulf too where such maids ditched a perfectly reasonable sponsor to get into more lucrative avocations such as prostitution. Indeed, the circumstances that would lead a woman to act so are pathetic and must be acknowledged. What’s wrong is to brand the sponsor of every run away maid as a monster. Indeed, one has seen Gulf households treating their domestic help as members of the family. They enjoy the host families’ luxuries and some older ones even wield a bit of say in family matters. Normally, why would any employer who goes through so much trouble to get a maid from overseas suddenly start beating her up?
As for the question of the legality of their visa status, one can say that over-regulation and bureaucratic approach of Indian officials is also to blame. I recently picked up a rather interesting chat thread on the Net where a group of Gulf residents were discussing the issue of housemaids.
“Get her on a visit visa and then apply for maid visa,” suggested one participant. “It’s the work-around everybody I know has done. You have to make sure she is able to convince the immigration in India that she’s got family here who she’s going to visit only. If they suspect she’s going for a maid’s job they may not let her through.”
The contributor goes on to add “I know this is not the complete honest way, but the Indian embassy requirement is absolutely tedious and unfair. Gettng an Indian maid’s paper work done the first time can easily have us short of AED20,000, given all deposits we have to make. So I would use the other route too.”
Agreeing with this, another blogger says, “One of my friends didn’t do the paperwork and her maid came in no problem. We thought we would be law abiding and did the whole Indian embassy thing and it was a pain in the neck. We had to pay a deposit of Dh9,200 to the Indian Embassy as well as supply a whole load of paperwork. They keep the deposit while the maid is still in your employment. After our maid arrived, I had to take her back to the embassy so she could show them I had bought her a phone and phone card. I found our maid stealing from us just before Eid last year and was unable to put her on the next plane as I had to take her into the Indian embassy after the holiday to sign a declaration to say that she had received all her dues before they would agree to give me my deposit back. I received the refund cheque four weeks later. If you are going to go this route, make sure you get a signature every time you pay salary.”
Most countries have stringent regulations for overseas recruitment of domestic help. In addition to the minimum wage, a domestic help is entitled to yearly return tickets, free food and accommodation. The regulations differ from country to country. The long-drawn process gets further complicated when the maid goes absconding.
Some time back it was reported that the police in the Gulf city arrested a runaway housemaid who masterminded a slavery ring, luring domestic workers into sex trade. According to the reports, police said her gang encouraged maids to abscond with promises of better work. Instead, they were locked up and made to sleep with men. The embittering experience of sponsoring a maid has prompted many residents to opt for part -time help even though it’s illegal.
Sponsors say considering the amount of paperwork that the employer has to handle in order to even start the visa process of a maid, the prospect is frightening. So, people opt to employ them illegally, even though they were prepared and willing to go the legal route initially. One believes that the authorities must start considering the rules and regulations and not just ease unwanted paperwork but also build into the system some mechanism to protect the rights and privileges of the sponsor as well.
The Peninsula
