Despite warning, poverty forces Indian maids to work in Gulf

PONDICHERRY : An advisory by the foreigners' registration officer of the commissioner of police in Trichy just a week before the brutal assault on an Indian domestic maid by her employer in Saudi Arabia had given indication on the plight of Indian maids employed overseas.
The officer in the advisory said the Indian embassies have stopped attesting employment contract of women domestic workers following large number of complaints of mental or physical abuse by the employers.However, absolute poverty continued to force several women from India including, Kasthuri Munirathinam from Vellore, whose arm was chopped off by her employer, to take up overseas employment. Many of Indian housemaids in the gulf countries have been forced to work long hours - around 60 to 100 hours a week. There have been frequent appeals from rights groups in various gulf countries that maids from Asia are underpaid, unable to freely change employers, and often suffer from abuse. Diplomats in the gulf said the Indian diplomatic missions receive regular complaints from house maids about non-payment of salaries, long working hours, inadequate living conditions, physical harassment and refusal of leave.
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Diplomats in the GCC countries, which comprise Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, said there are nearly 90,000 Indian house maids working in the six gulf nations. Each Indian diplomatic mission in these six gulf nations receives at least a dozen complaints from documented house maids, about unpaid wages and ill treatment, diplomatic sources said. According to the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi on an average a little over a 100 Indian housemaids are going to the UAE every month after getting clearance from Indian emigration authorities. Diplomats said some employers in the gulf countries make the house maids leave India on a visit visa, which does not need emigration clearance and then change the visa to employment visa once the maid arrives in the gulf country in order to circumvent the regulations.
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The Indian authorities will have no record of the maid having gone to the gulf country to work as a house maid when employers adopt this strategy.
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have refused to implement the $ 2,500 bank guarantee that the foreign employers are expected to deposit with the Indian embassy in Riyadh before approaching recruitment agents in India. The bank guarantee was planned as part of a recommendation of the inter-ministerial meeting held in June 2007.
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The union government has taken a number of measures to protect interest of women including imposing age restriction of 30 years for allowing them to go to the Gulf region and some other countries for employment under Emigration Check Required (ECR) category. The brutal attack on Kasturi has propelled the Indian government to consider a total ban on recruitment of housemaids by Saudi Arabia.
Men workers too complained of harassment by the employers in Gulf nations. M Allabakash, 24 of Mulluwadi gate, Salem, who is presently working as a driver at Riyadh said he took up overseas work to settle huge loans availed by his father. "There is no clear-cut working hour. It has been taxing and sometimes we work non-stop for more than six hours duty besides regular duty," he said. He proposes to return in December and vowed not to return