As of 2010, an estimated 52.6 million people ⁽²⁾ engage in domestic work worldwide, 83% of whom are women.⁽³⁾ Largely confined to the informal economy and kept behind closed doors of private homes, domestic workers are often excluded from policies on social and labour issues. While the work provides a significant source of paid employment for women, most of them work in poor conditions without legal rights or protections. This is especially so in countries within Asia and the Middle East.

This CAI paper explores the situation of migrant domestic workers from Ethiopia to Saudi Arabia in light of reports of exploitation and demonisation of Ethiopian maids as dangerous, and the consequent Saudi ban in recruitment of Ethiopian women. It analyses the gendered political economies and policy choices of both countries that create and maintain a cheap and compliant workforce. The paper highlights the failure of sending and receiving countries in recognising the contribution of female domestic workers to social reproduction ⁽⁴⁾ in the face of growing privatisation and withdrawal of state services. As a possible solution, the paper stresses the need for an international governance framework for migration that goes beyond placing accountability on the two countries involved.

Ethiopian foreign domestic workers in Saudi Arabia

Though the Middle East employs only 4% of the global domestic workforce due to the small size of the region, in 2010 that still amounted to 2.1 million domestic workers.⁽⁵⁾ Almost one in three female wage-workers in the Middle East (31.8%) are women.⁽⁶⁾ The countries within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are among the highest per capita recipients of temporary labour migrants in the world, a large proportion of whom are engaged in construction and domestic or care work.⁽⁷⁾ Saudi Arabia, one of the top two destinations for Ethiopian migrants, employs one of the largest numbers of domestic workers, which accounts for nearly half of the total female employment.⁽⁸⁾

Foreign domestic workers (FDWs) began migrating to the Middle East in the 1970s, after the oil boom drastically improved living standards. Asian migrants replaced the former Arab labourers in the mid-1980s in a shift towards cheaper labour and still form a significant proportion of the current FDW population, but a growing number of FDWs now come from Africa.⁽⁹⁾ The number of African migrant workers moving to the Middle East has accelerated since Sri Lanka’s January 2013 moratorium against emigration to Saudi Arabia after the beheading of an FDW in the latter country,⁽¹⁰⁾ the June 2011 moratorium by Indonesia over a similar incident,⁽¹¹⁾ and a Saudi moratorium on the immigration of Filipino domestic workers in retaliation against their government’s demand of a minimum wage of US$ 400 and other required improvements to working conditions.⁽¹²⁾ Dismissing the demands of the Philippines for better worker protection and welfare as “illogical” and “excessive,”⁽¹³⁾ Saudi Arabia signed recruitment contracts with several African countries, including Ethiopia. Ethiopian FDWs, however, form the bottom rung of a racialised hierarchy of domestic workers, where they receive less favourable treatment and wages compared to Asian workers.⁽¹⁴⁾ However, after the Asian governments’ backlash, the chairman of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s recruitment committee said that Ethiopians were a “good alternative,”⁽¹⁵⁾ likely due to their acceptance of cheaper wages and lax labour requirements.

Despite this, Saudi Arabia imposed a ban on the recruitment of Ethiopian workers in July 2013, cancelling 40,000 visas and expelling thousands by December of the same year.⁽¹⁶⁾ While the tightening of labour laws and a crackdown on illegal migrants was one reason for the mass expulsions, the growing demonisation of Ethiopian maids by the media, authorities and Arab societies also contributed to an unequivocal targeting. Fuelled by xenophobia and exaggerated tales of crime, Ethiopian workers were depicted as dangerous criminals. In October 2013, a Saudi news website quoted fearful employers concerned about the “nightmare” aroused by “repeated bloody crimes” of Ethiopian maids.⁽¹⁷⁾ Another Saudi newspaper, Al-Eqtisadiya, quoted Dr Abdul Aziz bin Mohammed bin Hussein, a professor of criminal psychology at King Saud University, who said that cultural beliefs and superstitions led Ethiopian maids to kill children as “sacrifices for their sins.”⁽¹⁸⁾ While he acknowledged that strict isolation and mistreatment of workers often led to depression and subsequent harm against the family or themselves, he called upon the authorities to rescue Saudis from “maids’ terrorism” and the families to take precautions against possible violence by not mistreating their workers. Calls to hold employers accountable for maltreatment are generally ignored within such narratives, as is the absence of any legal protections for FDWs.⁽¹⁹⁾

These public outcries also fail to acknowledge the number of cases of violence against FDWs within Saudi Arabia and the GCC, “including physical and sexual assault, denial of salary, sleep deprivation, withholding of passports, confinement, and murder.”⁽²⁰⁾ Those who are raped by employers are often prosecuted for illicit relations and face life imprisonment or the death penalty. More than 45 maids awaited execution in Saudi Arabia as of January 2013, while Human Rights Watch reported at least 69 executions of migrant workers in 2012, and Amnesty International reported 79 executions in 2011.⁽²¹⁾

Inadequate policy responses at both ends

In July 2013, after continued pressure from the international community, the Saudi Arabian Council of Ministers passed a law guaranteeing domestic workers nine hours of daily rest, one day off every week, and a paid vacation of one month after two years of employment.⁽²²⁾ However, this is far from the transformative policies required to ensure workers’ rights, since the law still allows prosecution based on vague allegations of disregard for Islam or impeachment of the country’s rules and regulations. It also does not allow workers to deny work without a “legitimate” reason. In addition, what has been termed by the United Nations (UN) as the root cause of migrant workers’ exploitation—the kafala or sponsorship system—remains firmly in place in the GCC.⁽²³⁾ Under this system, worker visas are tied to one employer who then dictates the work conditions, often ignoring previously agreed contractual terms. The worker’s passport is confiscated by the employer and s/he is not allowed to change employers or flee in cases of abuse. However, Bina Fernandez, a prominent scholar on international migration, adds that, along with the kafala system, a social compact between the Gulf states and its citizens is the main institutional driver of increasing demand for FDWs.⁽²⁴⁾ The migrant domestic workers regime, she says, is a low-cost substitute for investment in public welfare and services, at the same time ensuring complete political compliance in exchange for a life of luxury with minimal costs incurred in payment of social services.⁽²⁵⁾ Anh Nha Longva, a professor of social anthropology, adds that besides decentralising the regulation of an essential migrant labour force to private households, the kafala system offers business opportunities to Gulf nationals who are the only ones eligible to sponsor visas, even for those they don’t employ.⁽²⁶⁾ A 2008 study found that 70% of the trading in visas in Saudi Arabia is done through the black market,⁽²⁷⁾ with forced labour generating an annual profit of US$ 8.5 billion in the Middle East.⁽²⁸⁾

At the same time that the migrant domestic worker regime is crucial for the social reproduction of receiving countries, it also serves the same purpose for sending countries like Ethiopia.⁽²⁹⁾ Emigration basically served two purposes for the Ethiopian state, says Fernandez. Firstly, it helped contain political dissent after the 2005 elections and reduced economic pressures of rising unemployment. Secondly, the remittance from migration prevented economic collapse, with money from registered sources alone surpassing foreign direct investment in 2007. Fernandez argues that the post-liberal downsizing of public sector employment which made post-secondary education a necessary criterion left a large number of women unemployed. Particularlym women from Muslim communities—who already faced high unemployment—saw migration as an opportunity to work outside their conservative societies, while making such employment acceptable by opting for Muslim households in the Gulf. Fernandez found that Ethiopian female domestic workers were often single, young women with only secondary education ⁽³⁰⁾ who earned up to US$ 200 a month in Saudi Arabia, as opposed to an Ethiopian college graduate who earned only US$ 90 at home.⁽³¹⁾ Sending a single girl, as opposed to one married, would also ensure that she would send the money to her natal family.⁽³²⁾

The Ethiopian Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (MoLSA) estimates that 35,000 women are migrating annually through registered channels, while an equal number go through unregistered channels.⁽³³⁾ In 2006, the government made attempts to clamp down on illegal money transfers through the National Bank of Ethiopia, but the high costs and inefficient bureaucracy within legal channels have deterred Ethiopians from using them.⁽³⁴⁾ Further attempts at regulation include a prohibition on migration to the Gulf in October 2013 (which only exacerbated illegal migration) and pre-departure orientations by the MoLSA aimed at disciplining workers to conform to “acceptable norms around work, gender, sexuality, religion and the ‘Arab culture’.”⁽³⁵⁾

The way forward

Human rights organisations, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the UN and its member states have continued advocating for national labour legislation on behalf of domestic workers in both sending and receiving countries.⁽³⁶⁾ This includes basic reforms related to minimum wage, regular payment, fixed working hours, weekly rest, paid annual leave and social security. In addition, the Domestic Workers’ Convention No. 189—thus far unratified by Saudi Arabia—calls upon workers to organise and mobilise as agents to demand the ratification and implementation of its recommendations. However, FDWs’ status as temporary contract workers in Saudi Arabia and the GCC, with little to no chance of acquiring permanent residency or citizenship, raises the question of who to make claims of rights upon—the sending or the receiving country? Since migrant domestic workers must operate within the intersections of labour migrant management systems of both countries as well as transit spaces, it is difficult to enforce laws in a policy environment that does not even recognise domestic work as legitimate labour.⁽³⁷⁾ But the problem is also exacerbated by the fact that there is no coherent multilateral body that governs migration as opposed to labour, which is the purview of the ILO. Fernandez, therefore, takes Nancy Fraser’s framework of redistribution, recognition and representation and suggests a transformative framework that consolidates three approaches. She first recommends a single global migration governance regime of open border and/or global citizenship (to ensure recognition and representation), a coherent multilateral institution governing this regime, and multilateral organising in addressing the development needs of marginalised communities in source countries to prevent mass emigration.⁽³⁸⁾

Concluding remarks

Both the Ethiopian and Saudi Arabian governments have taken insufficient measures to protect the rights of a crucial labour force that sustains their economies. The Ethiopian government has imposed weak regulations in trade in domestic workers but actively monitored remittances and production of exportable labour. GCC countries like Saudi Arabia have made half-hearted attempts at partial reform that do not involve transformative policies like elimination of the kafala system or the provision of the right to form trade unions, among other rights enshrined in the Domestic Workers’ Convention No. 189.⁽³⁹⁾ This is because of the failure to acknowledge the contribution of domestic workers to vital social reproduction of each nation, further exacerbated by their ambiguous position as rightful workers working outside the boundary of citizenship. Therefore, it is no longer adequate to demand legislative accountability from only the two states involved. There is urgent need for a formal multilateral migration governance regime that operates over the level of a single nation-state and has institutional authority to impose implementation and the ability to facilitate cooperation and collaboration between trading states. Only then can one of the most indispensable groups of workers negotiate their rights between the vulnerable spaces they occupy.

Written by Kumud Rana ⁽¹⁾

NOTES:

(1) Kumud Rana is a Research Associate with CAI and a social science researcher interested in feminist, post-colonial and critical development studies. Contact Kumud through Consultancy Africa Intelligence’s Rights in Focus unit ( rights.focus@consultancyafrica.com). Edited by Liezl Stretton. Research Manager: Mandy Noonan.
(2) The International Labour Organisation (ILO) considers this to be a conservative estimate, as the figure relies exclusively on official sources and excludes domestic workers in an employment contract with a service agency, those who perform domestic work only occasionally, and child domestic workers under the age of 15.
(3) ‘Domestic workers across the world: Global and regional statistics and the extent of legal protection’, International Labour Organisation, 2013, http://www.ilo.org.
(4) Contributions of women to social reproduction include their involvement in paid or unpaid care labour that sustains human capital in both sending and receiving countries, as well as the biological reproduction of crucial labour force, mainly for the source country.
(5) ‘Domestic workers across the world: Global and regional statistics and the extent of legal protection’, International Labour Organisation, 2013, http://www.ilo.org.
(6) Ibid.
(7) Fernandez, B., 2011. Household help? Ethiopian women domestic workers’ labour migration to the Gulf countries. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 20(3-4), pp. 433-457.
(8) Ibid.
(9) Sabban, R., ‘Migrant women in the United Arab Emirates: The case of female domestic workers’, GENPROM Working Paper Series on Women and Migration No. 10, International Labour Organisation, 2002, http://www.ilo.org.
(10) ‘Sri Lanka government bans maids to Saudi Arabia’, Zee News, 5 February 2013, http://zeenews.india.com.
(11) ‘Minister says ban on workers to Middle East still in place’, The Jakarta Post, 12 February 2013, http://www.thejakartapost.com.
(12) ‘Avoiding reform, GCC states seek alternative sources of labour’, Migrant Rights, 11 February 2013, http://www.migrant-rights.org.
(13) Muhammad, F., ‘No breakthrough on lifting ban on Indonesian, Filipino maids’, Saudi Gazette, 20 June 2012, http://www.saudigazette.com.sa.
(14) Ibid.; Fernandez, B., 2010. Cheap and disposable? The impact of the global economic crisis on the migration of Ethiopian women domestic workers to the Gulf. Gender and Development, 18(2), pp. 249-262.
(15) Davison, W. and Clark, S., ‘Saudis turn to Ethiopian maids after Asian backlash’, Bloomberg Business Week, 23 January 2013, http://www.businessweek.com.
(16) Jobson, E., ‘Saudi Arabia migrant expulsions: ‘They beat us. I want to warn others not to go’’, The Guardian, 11 December 2013, http://www.theguardian.com.
(17) ‘The risk of Ethiopian maids worry Saudi families after repeated bloody crimes’, Arar News, 29 July 2013, http://www.ararnews.net.
(18) ‘Dehumanising Ethiopian domestic workers’, Migrant Rights, 19 October 2013, http://www.migrant-rights.org.
(19) In March 2014, Kuwaiti lawmakers demanded restrictions on recruitment of Ethiopian workers after a maid killed the 19-year-old daughter of her employer the same month. For more, see ‘Maid admits to murder of 19-year old Kuwaiti girl, MPs erupt in anger…call for expulsions’, Arab Times, 16 March 2014, http://www.arabtimesonline.com.
(20) ‘2012 Trafficking in Persons Report – Ethiopia’, United States Department of State, 19 June 2012, http://www.refworld.org.
(21) Chamberlain, G., ‘Saudi Arabia’s treatment of foreign workers under fire after beheading of Sri Lankan maid’, The Observer, 13 January 2013, http://www.theguardian.com.
(22) ‘Middle East failing to protect domestic workers’, Human Rights Watch, 28 October 2013, http://www.hrw.org.
(23) Khan, A., ‘Why it’s time to end kafala’, The Guardian, 26 February 2014, http://www.theguardian.com; Falconer, R., ‘UN calls on Qatar to end exploitation and trafficking of domestic workers’, The Guardian, 25 April 2014, http://www.theguardian.com; Batty, D., ‘Call for UN to investigate plight of migrant workers in the UAE’, The Observer, 13 September 2014, http://www.theguardian.com.
(24) Fernandez, B., 2011. Household help? Ethiopian women domestic workers’ labour migration to the Gulf countries. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 20(3-4), pp. 433-457.
(25) Sabban, R., ‘Migrant women in the United Arab Emirates: The case of female domestic workers’, GENPROM Working Paper Series on Women and Migration No. 10, International Labour Organisation, 2002, http://www.ilo.org.
(26) Longva, A.N., 1997. Walls built on sand: Migration, exclusion, and society in Kuwait. Boulder, CO: Westview.
(27) Shah, N., ‘Recent labour immigration policies in the oil-rich Gulf: How effective are they likely to be?’, Asian Regional Programme on Governance of Labour Migration, Working Paper No. 8, ILO Regional Office for the Asia and the Pacific, 2008, http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu.
(28) Jones, S., ‘Global forced labour generates $150 billion a year in illegal profits’, The Guardian, 20 May 2014, http://www.theguardian.com.
(29) Sassen, S., 2008. Two stops in today’s new global geographies: Shaping novel labour supplies and employment regimes. American Behavioral Scientist, 52(3), pp. 457-496.
(30) Fernandez, B., 2011. Household help? Ethiopian women domestic workers’ labour migration to the Gulf Countries. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 20(3-4), pp. 433-457.
(31) Davison, W. and Clark, S., ‘Saudis turn to Ethiopian maids after Asian backlash’, Bloomberg Business Week, 23 January 2013, http://www.businessweek.com.
(32) Overseas Development Institute (ODI), a London-based think tank, recently reported a trend of Ethiopian girls entering early marriages so they can get a divorce and migrate to the Middle East. A girl’s sexual initiation at marriage supposedly reduces her risk of facing disgrace were she to be abused by her employer. For more, see Smith, D., ‘Ethiopia’s child brides see marriage as key to jobs abroad, says thinktank’, The Guardian, 21 July 2014, http://www.theguardian.com.
(33) Fernandez, B., 2011. Household help? Ethiopian women domestic workers’ labour migration to the Gulf Countries. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 20(3-4), pp. 433-457.
(34) Aschalew, M., ‘Black hole: Remittances continue [to] rise but people still turn to black market’, Addis Fortune, 5 May 2013, http://addisfortune.net.
(35) Ibid.
(36) ‘Domestic workers across the world: Global and regional statistics and the extent of legal protection’, International Labour Organisation, 2013, http://www.ilo.org.
(37) Irianto, S. and Truong, T.D., 2014. “From breaking the silence to breaking the chain of social injustice: Indonesian women migrant domestic workers in the United Arab Emirates”, in Truong, T.D., et al. (eds.). Migration, gender and social justice: Perspectives on human security. Springer: Berlin.
(38) Frenandez, B., 2011. Exploring the relevance of Fraser’s ethical-political framework of justice to the analysis of inequalities faced by migrant workers. International Journal of Social Quality, 1(2), pp. 85-101.
(39) Haddou, L., ‘Domestic workers around the world: The big picture’, The Guardian, 26 February 2014, http://www.theguardian.com; ‘Ratifications for Saudi Arabia’, International Labour Organisation, http://www.ilo.org.