Migrant Domestic Workers In The Middle East

For over half a century, the Middle East has been major migration corridor for domestic workers from Asia and Africa. This book Illuminates the multidimensionality of these workers' lives as they engage in finding a balance between acting and being acted upon, struggle and accommodation, and movement and stasis.

Millions of women from poor countries migrate to the Middle East to undertake domestic work in order to support their families at home. This book examines the slavery-like conditions of these female migrant domestic workers, with specific reference to the Kafala system of sponsorship. Using Lebanon as a case study, the author sheds light on how human rights and labour rights abuses are perpetuated, despite attempts by activists in these countries to introduce attitudinal, cultural and legislative reform. He highlights the structural as well as cultural dimensions that make migrant domestic workers vulnerable to abuse, and looks at the need for reforms to democratize the system with fundamental rights for migrant workers. The analysis covers a number of dimensions, including all forms of abuse, restriction of freedom and economic exploitation, and explores the psychodynamics of the migrant domestic worker as a stranger in the household. A timely contribution to the study of migrant workers, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of sociology, anthropology, globalization, gender studies, labour rights, international labour and migration studies.

Key recommendations to governments of labor-receiving countries -- Background -- Labor reforms -- Immigration policies -- Criminal justice system -- Labor and civil society organizing -- Conclusion.

The discourse on migration outcomes in the West has largely been dominated by issues of integration, but it is more relevant to view immigration in non-Western societies in relation to practices of exclusion and inclusion. Exclusion refers to a situation in which individuals and groups are usually denied access to the goods, services, activities and resources associated with citizenship. However, this approach has been criticised in relation to gender issues, which are very relevant to the situation of migrants. The authors in this volume address this criticism. Furthermore, when framed within a North–South discourse, it may be potentially ethnocentric to assume that the experience of exclusion is cross-culturally uniform. Indeed, work on migration issues has invariably been conducted within such a discourse. The contributors go beyond this binary discourse of ‘exclusion versus inclusion’ which has dominated migration research. They examine the situation of migrants in the Middle East and Asia as one that encompasses both exclusion and inclusion, addressing related concepts of empowerment, ethnocracy, the feminisation of migration and gendered geographies of power, liberal constraint and multiculturalism, individual agency, migrant-friendly discourses, spaces of emancipation and spaces of insecurity. The book highlights current research in the Arab Gulf states, and examines multiculturalism in Asia more broadly. It will be of particular interest to students and researchers in international labour migration studies in the Middle East and Asia.

"Millions of Asian and African women migrate to work as domestic workers in the Middle East and Asia. Migrant domestic workers perform services essential for many households to function and their earnings constitute a significant proportion of the billions of dollars in remittances sent to their home countries each year. Yet most host governments systematically deny them key labor protections accorded other workers and implement immigration policies that impede workers' ability to escape abusive conditions. While many migrant domestic workers report decent working conditions, Human Rights Watch research over the past six years has shown that they risk a range of abuses. Common complaints include unpaid wages, excessive working hours with no time for rest, and heavy debt burdens from exorbitant recruitment fees. Isolation in private homes and forced confinement in the workplace contribute to psychological, physical and sexual violence, forced labor, and trafficking. Slow Reform surveys progress in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Lebanon, Jordan, Singapore, and Malaysia in extending protection to domestic workers under labor laws, reforming immigration 'sponsorship' systems that contribute to abuse, ensuring effective response by police and courts to physical and sexual violence, and allowing civil society and trade unions to organize. The report highlights best government responses and continuing protection gaps and makes detailed recommendations to ensure respect for migrant domestic workers' rights."--Page 4 of cover.

Millions of female migrants experience various forms of exploitative and unsafe conditions when migrating for employment and income generation, both in countries of origin and in destination countries. Vulnerabilities increased further due to the Covid-19 pandemic, causing income and job losses, entrapment in countries of destination without financial or social support and stigmatization upon return. One of the key migration routes travelled by millions of migrants is from South Asia to the Middle East. We examine this migration route for low-skilled female migrant workers highlighting the impacts of interventions along the migration pathway to determine the effectiveness of alternative mechanisms for reducing forced labour and trafficking. We draw lessons from the literature as well as from interviews with key informants in the field, including academics, development partners, NGO workers, and policymakers, to identify promising interventions that successfully reduce the vulnerability of women migrants. We find that, while Covid-19 has increased migrant vulnerability, it has also exposed the current system’s violations in facilitating trafficking and exacerbating poor working conditions.

This book tells the stories of the Ethiopian women who migrate to work as domestic workers in the Middle East. Drawing on qualitative research in Ethiopia, Lebanon and Kuwait, the author reveals how women’s aspirations to migrate are constituted within unequal gendered structures of opportunity in Ethiopia and asks us to consider how gender, race, class and nationality intersect in the construction of migrant subjectivities and agency. By analysing the impact of migration on social reproduction both in Ethiopia and the destination countries, the book offers fresh empirical and theoretical insights into the largest stream of women’s autonomous international migration from Africa.