We often hear mistreatment and abuse of domestic helpers from homeowners. We might even know someone who had experienced cruelty. We pity them, yet, we cannot make a stand since we are mere audiences. It is the government’s job to help them and get them out of misery. And besides, it’s their fault for being in that situation in the first place. Or is it?
If you are driven by the need to sustain for your family, send your little children to school, care for the medical expenses of your parents who are already suffering from too much work and sacrifices, and you have to make ends meet but you cannot do so since you are living in a less developed country where opportunity for the likes of you is slim, what would you do? If your only resort is to find your place in a foreign land and serve other people just to feed your starving family back home, what would you do? The risk is high but so is the chance to find greener pasture to your family, what would you do?
What would you do if you are not as privileged as you are now?
Sinclair James International Movement for Domestic Labor Reform is trying to reach out to each one of you who are reading this now. Domestic violence and mistreatment is against human rights. It is against our morality. It is against our conscience as human beings. Turn that pity into compassion and make your move. Join us and let us find another hope for those who had been shut into the dark by violence and abuse. Help us help them out to the light that they may see another tomorrow. Give them a chance to live life again and experience being out of their cages and confines of mistreatments. Above all, teach them to be better by assisting them to heal.
The Reality
• These helpers often work in the shadows, exploited in a foreign country and excluded from labor laws.
• They are underpaid or not paid at all
• Most of them are forced to work 24/7
• They are forbidden to leave their homes
• They do not have means to seek legal representation
• They are treated as slaves not workers
• They are physically, psychologically and sexually abused and worse
Thousands of workers from developing countries try their luck in more prosperous nations just in case they can find relief from their daily struggle.
Lines and queues are endless in the streets of Manila, Philippines where miles of people are waiting patiently under the heat of the scorching sun in a chance to get interviewed and pass employment in different embassies. Women in Kenya leave their homes and children and travel across the continent to get into work opportunities for migrants in neighboring regions. The same scenario happens in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. Most of them are wanting to migrate to the Middle East, the land rich in natural resources where there is a rumor that people would only leave their gold in the streets. Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and the other middle eastern countries all promise high wages despite claims and complaints that it’s all a font.
Lured by the promise of fraudulent agents and the chance to escape joblessness at home, hundreds of aspiring workers travel to the mentioned countries only to find out that they are to be treated as animals.
