Malaysia: 105 Women Forced to Work as Slaves Rescued
December 4 , 2012
Malaysian authorities have rescued 105 women, most of them from Indonesia and over a dozen from Philippines and Cambodia, who were forced to work as domestic workers without official permits, as reported in this capital.
Immigration Department sources indicated that the victims were working without pay for a cleaning agency that led them to houses during the day and at night kept them locked in a building.
Those women, who traveled to Malaysia with the promise of a secure job and a monthly salary, will be repatriated to their countries because they have no work permit.
During the raid, authorities arrested 12 people involved in the network.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Indonesia Calls for Safety after Maid Deaths
TIME by AP / Alex Kennedy
Eight Indonesian maids have fallen to their deaths from high-rise apartments in Singapore this year, and the Indonesia Embassy said Tuesday it is pushing for a ban on cleaning outside windows.
Indonesia, which supplies about half of Singapore's 200,000 maids, has asked employment agencies to include a clause in work contracts that prohibits maids from cleaning the outside of windows or hanging laundry from high-rise apartments, Indonesian Embassy Counsellor Sukmo Yuwono told the Associated Press.
Singapore's Manpower Ministry is working with Indonesian officials to identify and possibly blacklist agencies and employers who don't ensure maid safety, Yuwono said.
"Our position is ban it," Yuwono said. "We warn against employers giving dangerous jobs like cleaning windows to their maids. It's upsetting. These are human beings dying for nothing."
Singapore is under pressure to improve the working conditions of foreign maids, who live full-time in one in five households in the city-state of 5.2 million people. In March, the government pledged to mandate that maids must be allowed at least one day off a week starting next year.
Last week, a court fined an employer 5,000 Singapore dollars ($4,000) and barred her from hiring domestic workers in the future after a maid fell and died from her fifth-floor apartment last year while cleaning windows standing on a stool.
Eight maids, all Indonesian, have died after falling out of windows while working this year, five of whom were cleaning windows, Singapore's Manpower Ministry said. Four maids fell to their deaths in 2011.
Local media have published photos of maids squatting on windowsills, crawling on ledges or reaching dangerously off-balance to clean the outside of windows in high-rise apartment buildings.
In March, a passer-by snapped a picture of a 26-year-old Indonesian maid who had slipped while cleaning and was dangling from a window ledge eight stories up. Another maid tried to pull her up but after five minutes lost her grip and the woman fell to her death.
"These deaths are very sad," Halimah Yacob, Singapore Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports, told the Straits Times. "Employers must constantly drum the message into their maids about being careful when cleaning windows. Once they do that, we will be able to save a lot of lives."
Most of the Indonesian maids in Singapore come from small villages, which may lead some to miscalculate the risk of working on high-rise exteriors.
"When you are used to a very simple life in the village, (there's) no such thing as a high-rise building," said Mareyeami, an Indonesian who has worked as a maid in Singapore for six years. "Maybe they don't know how to clean the windows safely so they will just try their best. In our country, we don't think about our safety, life, all that. We just get the job done."
Indonesia is working with Singapore officials and agencies to improve maid training and raise awareness among employers about maid safety, Yuwono said. The embassy has helped at least one maid return to Indonesia after her employer insisted she climb out on a ledge to clean windows, he said.
"She was so scared," Yuwono said. "But at least she is alive. I have to call the families of the maids who die. It's very hard."
Hong Kong, another popular destination for Indonesian maids, sees far fewer accidental maid deaths because most apartment buildings outsource window cleaning to professionals while 80 percent of Singaporeans live in public housing blocks that don't provide that service, Yuwono said.
Many Singaporeans who hire maids would likely resist a ban on chores such as cleaning windows or hanging laundry, said Theresa Low, a homemaker who has employed Indonesian maids for 10 years.
"Singaporeans want to get their money's worth," Low said. "They really do work the maids very hard. Singaporeans don't value them, don't treasure them as much as they should. It's a tragic thing. That's somebody's daughter."
Maids from Indonesia are often eager to please the employer, are not accustomed to challenging elders and may not speak up when a task is dangerous, Low said.
"Sometimes they know something is dangerous, but they do it because they want to work hard," said Kartinah Yawikarta, a maid from Indonesia who has worked in Singapore for nine years. "We come here for money. But I always tell the other maids, it's better to go home with no money than to die."
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Associated Press Writer Sharon Chen in Singapore contributed to this story.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Saudi women object to import of Moroccan maids as too beautiful
Source :
Women in Saudi Arabia have innundated the governmentwith complaints over plans to import Moroccan women as housemaids. Thereason: Moroccan women are just too beautiful and may lure the Saudihusbands away.
Itis a relatively rare event when the voices of Saudi women are heard inprotest. This year there have been notable exceptions as some womenprotested for the right to drive, whilst others demanded the right to vote.Now they have another common cause as they put their foot down againstplans to bring female domestic maids from Morocco into the Kingdom.According to Emirates 24 the Shura Council was
“deluged by demands from Saudi women”to suspend the plans. Considering that Saudi households have beendesperate for new maids since the government issued a ban effectivefrom Aug. 1 on any new domestic workers from Indonesia and thePhilippines, the refusal to accept Moroccan workers at first appearsodd. However it turns out that Moroccan women are considered too beautiful and may lure the Saudi husbands away from their wives. Emirates 247 says some of the Saudi complaints were
“Moroccan women are so attractive that their husbands could easily fall for them.”Other stated concerns were
“Moroccans are good at magic and sorcery and that this could enable them to lure their husbands.”In a country where adultery is punishable by stoning to death, Saudi women are exhibiting signs of great insecurity.The Saudi government promised the people that it would recruit moreworkers from different countries to make up for the loss of Indonesiansand Filipinos. It plans to extend its recruitment drive to Ethiopia,Mali, Nepal, Kenya and Eritrea. Last week Arab News reportedthat Saudi citizens would be given visas to give to bring housemaidsfrom Morocco, as there is no recruitment bureaus established there asyet. The ban on maids from Indonesia and the Philippines hit Saudihouseholds hard, causing many to resort to hiring illegal maids overRamadan. The Saudis are reliant on foreign workers to perform theirhousehold tasks for them and very few Saudi women will work in suchmenial positions despite high unemployment, as they would be lookeddown on by other Saudis. The ban came into effect following the two countries attempts tointroduce regulations for the work conditions of their nationals. Trade Arabia saidboth countries demanded better working conditions for their employees.Saudi walked away from the negotiations abruptly and decided to lookfor domestic employees from countries not as concerned about imposingregulations to protect their workers. It also became clear that lowerrates of pay could be offered to other nationals.Saudi Arabia is still smarting over criticisms of the beheading of Indonesian maid RoyatiSabotti in June, which came to international attention. Since then boththe Indonesian and Sri Lankan governments have intervened to arrangepayments of blood money to free housemaids from their countries thatwere facing the death penalty by execution.
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/311506#ixzz1XyPzHYSg
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Saudi woman jailed for 'maid abuse' From Al-Jazeera January 2011 A Saudi court has sentenced a woman to three years in prison for stabbing, beating an
Saudi woman jailed for 'maid abuse'
January 2011
A Saudi court has sentenced a woman to three years in prison for stabbing, beating and burning her Indonesian housemaid.
The woman, who has not been named, was sentenced under a newly-enacted anti-human trafficking royal decree, Saudi newspapers reported on Monday.
She had been accused of beating 23-year-old Sumiati Binti Salan Mustapa in November, and had allegedly left Sumiati with several broken bones, internal bleeding and severe bruising.
She was also alleged to have placed a hot iron to Sumiati's head and stabbing and slashing her with scissors.
Sumiati appeared in court last week to show the judge the marks of her wounds. She underwent surgery in November, but Diddi Wahyudi, an Indonesian consulate official in Jeddah, said she will need a further operation.
A lawyer for the Indonesian consulate, Abdulrahman al-Muhamadi, has said he will appeal the ruling and press for a tougher punishment, the Saudi newspaper al-Watan reported.
But Sumiati's Saudi employer insisted on Sunday that she was innocent and had nothing to do with the wounds. She has denied the charges against her and has said she will appeal against the sentencing.
International outcry
Sumiati's case sparked an international outcry and outraged rights groups and labour activists after she was admitted to hospital last year.
Saudi Arabia's labour ministry said it was sorry about the case, but called it an isolated incident.
Amnesty International, the London-based human-rights watchdog, has said the case could be just "the tip of the iceberg" concerning the "systematic abuse" of Asian women working as domestic servants in the Gulf region.
Gulf states "have to take steps to put an end to this horrific treatment of migrant domestic workers, by immediately removing the legal climate of impunity that allows employers to exploit, enslave, abuse, assault and injure their domestic workers with virtual impunity" Malcolm Smart, Amnesty's director for the Middle East and North Africa, said when the allegations surfaced.
More than 80,000 Indonesian domestic workers flock to Saudi Arabia every year. Rights groups say they, and other migrant workers, at times face slavery-like conditions and sexual abuse.
The New York-based group Human Rights Watch has also urged Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait to do more to protect domestic workers in their countries, saying a string of allegations point to a "broader pattern of abuse".
'
January 2011
A Saudi court has sentenced a woman to three years in prison for stabbing, beating and burning her Indonesian housemaid.
The woman, who has not been named, was sentenced under a newly-enacted anti-human trafficking royal decree, Saudi newspapers reported on Monday.
She had been accused of beating 23-year-old Sumiati Binti Salan Mustapa in November, and had allegedly left Sumiati with several broken bones, internal bleeding and severe bruising.
She was also alleged to have placed a hot iron to Sumiati's head and stabbing and slashing her with scissors.
Sumiati appeared in court last week to show the judge the marks of her wounds. She underwent surgery in November, but Diddi Wahyudi, an Indonesian consulate official in Jeddah, said she will need a further operation.
A lawyer for the Indonesian consulate, Abdulrahman al-Muhamadi, has said he will appeal the ruling and press for a tougher punishment, the Saudi newspaper al-Watan reported.
But Sumiati's Saudi employer insisted on Sunday that she was innocent and had nothing to do with the wounds. She has denied the charges against her and has said she will appeal against the sentencing.
International outcry
Sumiati's case sparked an international outcry and outraged rights groups and labour activists after she was admitted to hospital last year.
Saudi Arabia's labour ministry said it was sorry about the case, but called it an isolated incident.
Amnesty International, the London-based human-rights watchdog, has said the case could be just "the tip of the iceberg" concerning the "systematic abuse" of Asian women working as domestic servants in the Gulf region.
Gulf states "have to take steps to put an end to this horrific treatment of migrant domestic workers, by immediately removing the legal climate of impunity that allows employers to exploit, enslave, abuse, assault and injure their domestic workers with virtual impunity" Malcolm Smart, Amnesty's director for the Middle East and North Africa, said when the allegations surfaced.
More than 80,000 Indonesian domestic workers flock to Saudi Arabia every year. Rights groups say they, and other migrant workers, at times face slavery-like conditions and sexual abuse.
The New York-based group Human Rights Watch has also urged Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait to do more to protect domestic workers in their countries, saying a string of allegations point to a "broader pattern of abuse".
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Luxury, horror lurk in Gadhafi family compound - maid tortured
Luxury, horror lurk in Gadhafi family compound
Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Moammar Gadhafi told his people he lived modestly during his nearly 42-year rule over Libya, often sleeping in a Bedouin tent.
Even if that was true for the leader, it certainly wasn't for his sons.
At a seaside compound in western Tripoli, the Gadhafi boys enjoyed a decadent lifestyle that his people could only dream about, while perpetrating unspeakable horrors on the staff that served their every whim.
CNN visited the seaside homes Sunday .
The first house we entered was apparently the "party" beach condo with an oversized door that led into sleek, modern, black-and-white rooms. It had been ransacked by the rebels, but still it was spectacular, with panoramic ocean views and plenty of evidence of the hedonism for which Hannibal Gadhafi -- one of Moammar Gadhafi's sons -- is famous.
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The bedroom held a circular bed, while the in-suite bathroom was complete with sunken Jacuzzi tub lined with plastic white flowers. Outside, a hot tub, a bar and a barbecue area adjoined the private beach.
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As we were about to leave, one of the staff told us there was a nanny who worked for Hannibal Gadhafi who might speak to us. He said she'd been burnt by Hannibal's wife, Aline.
I thought he meant perhaps a cigarette stubbed out on her arm. Nothing prepared me for the moment I walked into the room to see Shweyga Mullah.
At first I thought she was wearing a hat and something over her face. Then the awful realization dawned that her entire scalp and face were covered in red wounds and scabs, a mosaic of injuries that rendered her face into a grotesque patchwork.
Even though the burns were inflicted three months ago, she was clearly still in considerable pain. But she told us her story calmly.
She'd been the nanny to Hannibal's little son and daughter.
The 30-year-old came to Libya from her native Ethiopia a year ago. At first things seemed OK, but then six months into her employment she said she was burned by Aline.
Aline Skaf
Three months later the same thing happened again, this time much more seriously.
In soft tones, she explained how Aline lost her temper when her daughter wouldn't stop crying and Mullah refused to beat the child.
"She took me to a bathroom. She tied my hands behind my back, and tied my feet. She taped my mouth, and she started pouring the boiling water on my head like this," she said, imitating the vessel of scalding hot water being poured over her head.
She peeled back the garment draped carefully over her body. Her chest, torso and legs are all mottled with scars -- some old, some still red, raw and weeping. As she spoke, clear liquid oozed from one nasty open wound on her head.
After one attack, "There were maggots coming out of my head, because she had hidden me, and no one had seen me," Mullah said.
Eventually, a guard found her and took her to a hospital, where she received some treatment.
But when Aline Gadhafi found out about the kind actions of her co-worker, he was threatened with imprisonment, if he dared to help her again.
"When she did all this to me, for three days, she wouldn't let me sleep," Mullah said. "I stood outside in the cold, with no food. She would say to staff, 'If anyone gives her food, I'll do the same to you.' I had no water -- nothing."
Her colleague, a man from Bangladesh who didn't want to give his name, says he was also regularly beaten and slashed with knives. He corroborated Mullah's account and says the family's dogs were treated considerably better than the staff.
Mullah was forced to watch as the dogs ate and she was left to go hungry, he said.
It seems to sum up how the workers at the beachside complex were viewed by the Gadhafi family.
"I worked a whole year they didn't give me one penny," Mullah said. "Now I want to go to the hospital. I have no money. I have nothing."
She starts sobbing gently -- an utterly pitiful scene.
Original CNN news article
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/08/28/libya.gadhafi.nanny/index.html?iref=NS1
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Justice for Shweyga Mullah tortured and enslaved by Aline Gaddafi Skaf
Friday, November 26, 2010
11 / 19 /2010 - One more maid tortured.
This week, two cases of severe abuse of Indonesian maids by their Saudi sponsors have surfaced, one of them ending in death and the other in serious injuries.
The first case, of 23-year-old Sumiati BT Salan Mustapa was first reported by the Saudi Gazette. This initial report mentioned that Mustapa arrived in Saudi-Arabia in July to work for a family in Madina. On November 6th Mustapa was admitted to a private hospital in Madina injured from head to toe in an unconscious state. The private hospital was unable to treat her serious injuries and she was transferred to the King Fahd hospital. A worker there told the Gazette that Mustapa’s body “was burned on many places, both legs were almost motionless, some parts of her skin on her head were removed and strong marks of old wounds were on her body including skin loss on lips and head, a fractured middle finger and a cut near an eye.” Mustapa also showed signs of malnutrition or excessive blood loss.
Didi Wahyudri, Indonesia’s citizen protection consul in Saudi Arabia told CNN that Mustapa was abused from the first day of her employment and that she was beaten badly. According to the Al-Watan newspaper report, “In room 365 at the orthopedic ward in King Fahd Hospital in Madina, Mustapa looked deformed as if her scalp had been peeled off….burns are scattered all over her lean body including her upper lip and fingers…she is bandaged all over and could hardly move or speak.”
Report in the online paper Al-Saudia said today (Friday) that Mustapa’s female employer was arrested in connection with the case. According to the Madina police chief, three members of the family were involved in the torture.
While the Saudi regime maintains that this is an “individual case” and that “the media have exaggerated the report”, a new story coming from the Saudi town of Abha puts this into question. According to CNN, on November 11th the body of an Indonesian maid, Kikim Komalasari, was found with signs of serious physical abuse on the streets of Abha. According to Indonesian officials, the employer suspected in the attacks was arrested by Saudi authorities.
These stories of abuse are of the most extreme kind migrant workers endure in Saudi-Arabia, but abuse is not rare. When employers are given unrestricted powers over their workers in the Saudi sponsorship system, this creates an opportunity for abuse. Migrant workers cannot change sponsors even in cases of abuse, but the sponsors can have the workers repatriated at will, or prevent them from leaving the country. Domestic workers are also excluded from the protection Saudi Arabia’s labor laws offer. This abuse happens because little is done to prevent it.
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............................................PICTURES ...............................................
Sumiati lies in a hospital bed in Saudi Arabia. Her employer is accused of cutting off part of her lips with scissors, scalding her back with an iron, fracturing her middle finger, and beating her legs until she could hardly walk
May 2008 - Maid with fingers amputated due to abuse get 600 USD as compensation
Abused Indonesian Maid Gets Paltry CompensationJEDDAH, 21 May 2008 — A High Court judge in Riyadh, on Monday, awarded SR2,500 in compensation to Nour Miyati, an Indonesian maid whose toes and fingers were amputated following alleged abuse by her sponsor and his wife.
Reviewing a previous ruling, the judge also dropped charges against the wife of Miyati’s sponsor, who had admitted abusing the maid, and overturned the 35 lashes she was sentenced to. Meanwhile, the sponsor was found innocent due to a lack of evidence.
“According to the judge, there was not enough evidence,” said Nasser Al-Dandani, the lawyer appointed by the Indonesian Embassy to represent the maid.
Miyati’s case came to light after her sponsor brought her to a Riyadh hospital in March 2005, afflicted by gangrene in her fingers, toes and a part of her right foot.
She initially claimed her sponsor tied her up for a month in a bathroom and beat her severely, injuring her eyes and knocking out some of her teeth.
However, investigators — who questioned her without the presence of Indonesian Embassy representatives, lawyers or members of the National Society for Human Rights — later claimed the maid had changed her testimony.
Miyati was, subsequently, charged with making false accusations and imprisoned for a few days.
She was then transferred to a shelter at Nahda Women’s Charity Society where, according to social worker Hind Al-Ismaili, she could not take proper care of herself because of her injuries.
It was then that Al-Dandani secured her release from the shelter.
Miyati’s case was delayed several times as her sponsor and his wife repeatedly failed to attend court hearings, prompting the Riyadh Principality to issue an order forcing them to come.
According to sources, the sponsor adopted several tactics to disrupt the case, including a threat to file a SR1 million defamation suit against the maid.
Further to this, in December 2005, a judge at the Court of Summation sentenced Miyati to 79 lashes for making false accusations against her sponsor and his wife — a ruling that was reversed in April 2006.
Speaking about the ruling, Al-Dandani said, “The judge did not consider the injuries and amputations had been caused by the sponsor and his wife despite the medical report… He did not take into consideration that she had not been paid her salary for 18 months, that she was in good health when she came to work here and that when her toes and fingers turned gangrenous she was not taken to hospital early enough.
“Even her broken teeth, her injured eye, which doesn’t function properly, and hearing loss were not considered proof of abuse.”
Judges compensate injuries and lost limbs in car accidents and medical malpractice according to a standard value, he said, adding that according to some estimates, Miyati deserved at least SR400,000.
“Although, we did not ask for a specific amount, we expected it to be fair,” said Al-Dandani.
“The only thing the judge looked at was the report by a committee appointed by the court to evaluate compensations for accidents. This committee of four men did not once see Miyati or speak to her. I don’t know what they based their evaluation on and how the judge could accept that,” Al-Dandani added, saying that he will appeal the ruling at the Court of Cassations.
Source :
http://archive.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=110110&d=21&m=5&y=2008
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Saudi maid verdict 'outrageous'
Human Rights Watch has called on Saudi judges to overturn a decision to drop charges against a Saudi couple accused of severely abusing an Indonesian maid.
A judge in Riyadh awarded $670 damages to the maid, Nour Miyati, but dropped all charges against her employers.
The female employer, who admitted the abuse and was originally sentenced to 35 lashes, had her sentence overturned.
Human Rights Watch said the ruling on Monday was "outrageous", and sent "a dangerous message" to Saudi employers.
Ms Miyati, 25, contracted gangrene after allegedly being tied up for a month and left without food in 2005. She had to have several fingers and toes amputated.
New York-based Human Rights Watch called for an appeals court to "impose stiff penalties on the employers, including imprisonment, and payment of significant financial compensation".
Saudi officials have not commented on the report.
'Impunity'
Human Rights Watch says Ms Miyati was treated in a Riyadh hospital in March 2005 for gangrene, malnourishment and other injuries.
All charges against Ms Miyati's male employer were dropped early in the investigation, Human Rights Watch says.
On Monday a Riyadh judge found the female employer not guilty, despite her earlier admission and "compelling physical evidence", the group says.
A prior Saudi judgement, subsequently overturned, had seen Ms Miyati convicted of falsely accusing her employers and sentenced to 79 lashes.
Human Rights Watch said the latest ruling "sends a dangerous message to Saudi employers that they can beat domestic workers with impunity and that victims have little hope of justice".
Rights organisations say many foreign domestic maids in Saudi Arabia work in harsh circumstances and often suffer abuse by their employers.
The Saudi Labour Ministry has acknowledged some problems, but the government also says foreign workers' rights are protected under Islamic law.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7415290.stm
Published: 2008/05/22 15:47:39 GMT
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