EQUAL TIMES (16/6/2020)
When she left the Philippines to work in Jordan, Rosa took two mobile phones with her. She knew that one of them would be confiscated by the recruitment agency that brings women like her to the Middle East to work as housekeepers, nannies and caretakers. The other one she kept hidden in her bra.
Her phone was the only way of communicating with her siblings. Supporting them was main reason why she accepted a job in Jordan, tens of thousands of kilometres away from home.
Rosa started working as live-in maid for a Jordanian family. She worked long hours, had to be available all the time and wasn’t allowed to leave the house.
“For three months I wasn’t paid a salary. When my boss tried to rape me I ran away,” she says.
Migrant domestic workers come to Jordan under a sponsorship system known as kafala, which ties the worker’s legal residency status to their employer. Common in many Middle Eastern countries, the kafala system gives employers almost total control over their employees’ lives. It has been described by the International Labour Organization (ILO) as a “contemporary form of slavery.”
After she ran away from her first employer, Rosa was sent by her agency to another home but the second family she worked for didn’t treat her much better.
“The son was 16 years old and used to hit me and shout at me,” says Rosa while fighting back tears. “I became very depressed. I wanted to die.” (…)
Read more: https://www.equaltimes.org/how-filipina-domestic-workers?var_mode=calcul#.XuiLOtVKjIV