Qatar criticised for domestic workers' abuse
Amnesty International has accused Qatar for failing to protect migrant domestic workers, according to a report on Al Jazeera.
The UK based human rights group are saying that migrant domestic workers are exposed to a greater extent of abuse than construction workers and are trapped by employers.
A report published on Wednesday called My sleep is my break: Exploitation of migrant domestic workers in the Gulf Arab state features instances of physical and sexual assault.
It said some of the women interviewed reported being "slapped, pulled by the hair, poked in the eyes, and kicked down the stairs by their employers" and that three said they were raped.
A separate report focusing on domestic workers in the 2022 World Cup host country was published to ensure they were not a "footnote to the issues construction workers face", Amnesty researcher, James Lynch said, according to the news agency Associated Press.
"We have spoken to women who have been terribly deceived, then found themselves trapped and at the mercy of abusive employers, banned from leaving the house," said Audrey Gaughran, Amnesty International's Global Issues director.
Gaughran also added that some women were threatened with physical violence when they told their employers they wanted to leave.
About 84,000 women domestic workers are employed in Qatar, most of them from South and Southeast Asia, Amnesty said. Some told the campaign group's researchers they worked "up to 100 hours a week with no day off".
"Under Qatari law there are no limits on working hours for domestic workers and there is no requirement to give them a day off. They are also unable to lodge a complaint with the Labour Ministry," the report said.
Read more at Al Jazeera
Before the labours get their rights in Qatar, will the hell be frozen or the next olympic winter games come to Qatar :)
If it's not politics then what it is .... ? Everybody knows ....
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Thu, 24.04.2014 , 09.00 hrs ....................................................................................................
worker right? ha ha are you joking?!!
@brit: agree with you... exactly they came here to earn something for their families thats why out of 100% i think only 5% raised their voice...
Sadly, this has been going on for years. The government and the embassies of those countries must take a lot of the blame. Most domestic workers do not complain for fear of losing their jobs.
iam confused now...one place i hear that janta and justice is good here...but now this story tells janta and justice is bad
I cut and pasted from the report of course.
Did you read any of it? It's giving me nightmares.
@boxbe: its in report man...
MY..yes but iam wondering on the story of galinda
@boxbe: I think you have already read the report completely I saw your comment their..
@boxbe: here is the source...
http://dohanews.co/amnesty-urges-qatar-make-bold-reforms-tackle-domestic-worker-abuse/
source please
They should have to hang that bas***d in front of Public....
It's horrific.
I don't know what's worse - that this man raped a woman while she was lying on the ground unable to move with 2 broken legs... or that he was never punished for it?
It makes me want to cry.
OMG...
what the hell....... :'(
Here is another very disturbing story, also from the Amnesty Report.
Something like this could happen to anyone, it's quite terrifying to think you could be put into jail for being raped.
'Analyn', a 46-year-old woman from the Philippines, told Amnesty International in March 2013 that she reported her rape to the police, but now faced a charge of “illicit relations”, sometimes called a “love crime”, applied to people accused of having consensual sexual relations outside marriage.
“I slept in the room outside, it is a storage room. It’s like they took things outside of it and put like a small double bed enough for two persons inside. There was no cabinet. All my things were in my bag…
A man one day came into my room from outside of the house. He was a worker in the house next door. They were renovating the house to three storeys. There were 11 or 12 workers. He noticed that I was by myself in the house.
He stood at the door of the room and he said, “don’t be afraid, don’t worry, I like you.” I said, “go out and we can talk”. But he forced his way inside. I didn’t want to look like I am afraid. I had to be brave to convince him so that he doesn’t do anything.
He came closer and I had to go back but there is no door to go out. The door is behind him. The only thing behind me is the bathroom. “MY SLEEP IS MY BREAK”
I said ‘don’t do anything to me’. He said ‘if you will fight me, if you tell anybody, no one will believe you… I have done this before with another khadima [maid]’. He grabbed one of my arms and then grabbed my breast. I thought he would kill me. I asked him, “don’t kill me”. He said, ‘even if you tell madam, no one will believe you.’
I started crying a lot. I felt something hard in his pocket and I thought maybe it is a knife. I thought in my mind if he does something then I can complain after. He will hurt me but maybe I won’t die if I don’t fight. He was a big man.
After he did it. After he raped me. He left. I went and washed myself. And I pray – asking for guidance.
I didn't know the phone number for madam or sir. I had a mobile. But only because I was warned by others that I should keep a mobile. So I called the agency and told them what happened and asked them what do I do?
They said to call 999. So I did. After one hour they came. But they couldn’t come inside because the doors are locked in the house. The doors are always locked.
Police told me to go out from the window. I told them what happened. After my employer came I also told them what happened.
The police asked me: ‘do you know this man?’ I said I will only know if I see his face again.
Five workers in the house next door ran when the police went there. I think they must have known what happened. The man was not there. The police catch the five men and they ask me, ‘which one?’ I said, ‘not any of these five.’ Then they bring the five men to jail temporarily for investigation. In the afternoon, madam says go to capital police station to make a statement. So I went and they did a medical check…
They found a number of this man in my mobile. I had surrendered my mobile to them. But the other khadima [maid] used the mobile too...
It was three [police] men and one woman who interviewed me in a room downstairs.
But I was shaking. I had had no food or water… A CID person has asked me, ‘how are you?’ I asked for food and water. Then they gave me a small bottle of water and potato chips. They could see how hungry I was and drinking water with a big thirst. I took a paracetamol because I had a headache from all this and not eating.
Then in the morning at 07:00 or 08:00 they took me to the second floor. It was one man and one woman from CID for another statement. They said, ‘this man is your boyfriend – yes or no?’ I say to them, ‘if he is my boyfriend – why should I complain?’. They said to me: ‘don’t reply in English, talk in Arabic only’. I say I can only understand few words. They said to me, ‘you are a liar – talk Arabic’. The man he said ‘if you do not talk Arabic then I will hit you with this’ and he raised a hole puncher. They asked questions in Arabic and sometimes in English.
One of them told me that they find the Syrian man that night [the first night after this happened], at first he denied that he did anything but later he said that, ‘yes I go to her room’, he said that I invited him into my room in his statement. The police and my employer believe him.
I stayed in jail for four months. After I finished two months in jail I asked a policewoman, ‘why am I still here? I am a rape victim.’ She checked my file and said, ‘you are not a rape victim, you are a love case and trespassing [against the law].’
****
In December 2013, Analyn was sentenced to a year in prison. Her case is a powerful and disturbing illustration of the unjust treatment meted out to some domestic workers who report their rape. Rather than having her case taken seriously and being supported to file a charge against the alleged perpetrator after she herself called the police, Analyn was instead treated as a criminal and prosecuted for "illicit relations". At the time of writing, she remains in prison.
The report about Angelica:
At midnight Angelica heard a car arrive so she went outside to close the gate. Fifteen minutes later her buzzer rang. Angelica assumed that it was her female employer calling her, so she went downstairs where she found her male employer, who she said “smelt like alcohol”. When she asked him, “where is madam?” he responded “ma fee madam ['madam' is not here]” and reached for her.
Angelica tried to run away but he caught her and removed her dress and hijab. Angelica said she asked him to wait, and as soon as he paused, she ran upstairs to hide in the bathroom. She tried to escape from the house but fell while trying to climb out of a small window. When she landed, she was in incredible pain and could not get up. She later found out that both her legs and feet had been broken and her spine was fractured.
She managed to crawl and drag herself into her room and locked the door. Her employer repeatedly kicked the door until there was a big hole. He walked into the room and despite Angelica begging him to leave her alone and get help as she lay on the carpet unable to move, he proceeded to commit a violent sexual assault against her. Only after the assault ended did he agree to call an ambulance, saying that he would help her because he loved her. Angelica told researchers she was terrified and thought that he was going to kill her.
When she spoke to the police, she said she had fallen off a ladder changing a light bulb. Explaining why she had said this, she told Amnesty International:
“I was very scared.”
She was taken to the hospital early in the morning and eventually an operation on her spine was carried out. After a week her female employer her came to visit her in the hospital and brought her ID card, but not her passport. While in hospital, she spoke to a social worker and told her everything that had happened. Eventually Angelica was moved to a shelter at the Philippines Overseas Labour Office. In September 2012 she went to the police station to file a complaint and went with the police to her employers’ house.
“At the police station, an investigator told me that my employer spent a night in jail. I don’t know for sure.”
When researchers met Angelica in March 2013 she was in a wheelchair and told researchers that since the assault she had suffered urinal problems and incontinence. She had had titanium plates inserted into both legs. When she tried to walk, her legs and feet swelled up.
Angelica had only a photocopy of her passport at the time and she did not know if her employer or the police had the original.
“The employers have my ATM card. At the time of the attack, I had 1100 riyals [US$302], a bit more than a month’s salary, saved under my bed...I planned to buy a computer for my son with that money.”
In October 2012 she went to the prosecutor's office and spent more than an hour telling the public prosecutor the full story. The prosecutor was male, as was the interpreter. No women were present. Five months later she told researchers:
“I told the interpreter that I wanted justice for myself. They said that they would analyse my case and get back to me. I am now waiting for a decision from the court. I don’t know what day, what month I will go to court. They didn’t tell me anything about what would happen. I haven’t heard back from them, the prosecutor has never gotten back to me. I don’t have his number so I can’t call him. I called the embassy yesterday to ask about my case, they didn’t have any information.”
“Now...the more I think about it, I want to go home. I think I’ll have to drop the case. My situation is very hard. My family wants me to come home. My employer isn’t going to give me anything; he isn’t going to pay my salary. I don’t think I’ll win my case. I think I lost my case.”
Amnesty International has since been informed by the Philippines Embassy that Angelica was repatriated in 2013. Her case had been dismissed by the Public Prosecutor's office due to "lack of evidence".
Seriously?? This is in the report:
Speaking to local media in July 2013, a prominent local lawyer, explaining the way in which
prosecutors assess rape claims in Qatar, stated:
“She [a woman reporting rape] could push him (or) resist the movement by moving her hands
– that would show a mark or scratch, which proves that she was under a physical struggle ...
But if that doesn’t show, she’s lying. That’s clear for any investigator.”
so criticising Qatar for labour law?? how about the homeless people in their streets why are they not protesting against that?
Qatar should do something on the workers and traffic system
it is a big difficulty here to resign and join other company
they will restrict you here for the coming 2 years
we cannot always blame westerns. we have to consider better system for migrant employees whose participation is more than 70% in total employment. Qatar should bring to formulation of rigid legislation on companies to follow good corporate governance and ethics in their all activities. apart from profit company must consider labor welfare to succeed in long term.
When will Qatar announce the much awaited good news for the workers ?
there is hidden agenda against Qatar. Qatar Labour ministry passed a strict labour law to improve work condition of Migrant workers,
y criticizing again again.
qatar can do
We cannot consider it as jealousy conflict.Qatar should do some thing to improve the life of the workers. Because their contribution is very high to Prepare Qatar to host world cup and upcoming sports events...Qatar must to do something to protect the workers rights. I think they are going to implement some good system for workers welfare... Insha allah lets see..
England and the sates are doing their best to steal the world cup from Qatar