Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Encounters with Filipina OFWs in the Middle East (Part 2)

This is a continuation of Part 1 posted on June 29, 2012.


I wish I asked her the name of the agency that recruited her to the UAE (United Arab Emirates) early last year. I now only remember she mentioned a middle eastern man, most probably of Egyptian descent, working with the recruiting agency in Manila. This man constantly shuttles between Manila and Dubai, knows the international travel bureaucracy well, and probably has a significant base of Emirati clientele needing cheap domestic helpers from overseas. But she was supposed to have been hired as a hair stylist to work in Dubai, not as a maid in a house in a sparsely populated desert town far from the city - but it was too late when she realized she's been trapped.

There must have been at least two dozen new Filipina recruits in her flight from Manila to Dubai. They were met by agency representatives at the airport and quickly herded into an 'agency house' where they were told to stay for a few days and wait until their work assignments are confirmed. Apparently, details of their employment contracts are going to be blatantly ignored - and it's easy enough for these crooks to do this! The recruits are made to surrender their passports, essential travel documents and cell phones; all their luggage and personal belongings are searched, and they are also subjected to strip-search, as if they are all criminals. At this point they are cut-off from the rest of the world...

She was no longer crying. She even gave me a smile when she proudly declared she knew about such strip-searches beforehand, and was ready with a clever plan to hide a small cell phone. This phone will turn out to be her ticket to freedom. She was also very happy to find out later that there are two of them, two Filipina OFWs, assigned as maids in the same Emirati house. Loneliness will be somewhat bearable.

Her story of how they were treated as slaves and prisoners by an Emirati family is heartbreaking. It shocked me to the bone; it elicited an extreme anger I thought I'm not capable of, and it made me really think what being human is all about. They work seven days a week, from four o'clock in the morning until midnight. They only have two meals a day. They will not be paid for the first three months because the Emirati family has given an advance payment to their agency (so the family said); and because the recruits owe money to the agency (so the agency later said), their monthly salary, when it starts to be paid, is less than what's stated in their employment contract ($200 per month). They have to wear the hijab and muslim-appropriate clothing, and they are prohibited from making eye contacts with their male masters. They were slapped or spat on when they make mistakes or are slow to respond to commands. I believe all her stories (just like I believe the documentary Jessica: A Saudi Slave). I can't remember all her other stories about the barbaric treatments they endured, but I do recall that in the midst of my increasing anger I somehow felt relieved that she didn't seem to show signs of a crushed self-esteem.

There were physical abuses and sexual advances which ultimately led her to use her secret cell phone to call the police and the Philippine Embassy in the UAE. Instead of believing her (and despite showing her bruises), the police listened to the Emirati family's side of the story and put her to jail. In the end, an officer of the Philippine Embassy was able to arrange for the cancellation of her two-year employment contract, and after about seven months of slavery she's going home. With no money saved. With a heavy heart for her compatriot and friend who is now left alone in that house in the desert......... (To be Continued; Next: Filipina OFWS I met at the Doha airport)