The New Slavery of the New Middle East in Holy Ramadan
Imagine if one of the oligarchs did not get his ‘cut’ of the people’s money for a whole year….
“Housemaids in Lebanon live a ‘new slavery’ of beatings and imprisonment: routinely called slaves, liars, and thieves….. There are over 200 thousand housemaids in the country…HRW reports that one foreign housemaid dies in Lebanon each week: ’suicide’ falling down while trying to escape from employers, and withholding medical treatment are the main causes of death....”
‘Suicide’ my eyes…
“Amnesty International: Jordanian working conditions push foreign housemaids to suicide. They work 19 hour days, and they are subject to being kicked spat upon and not paid......there are over 40 thousand maids mostly from Southeast Asia....”
“Philippine government bans sending housemaids to Jordan because of abuses....”
“Indonesia to stop sending housemaids to Persian Gulf states, because of abuses.....”
These serious abuses are obviously not confined to the Gulf states, they extend all the way to Jordan and Lebanon. It is probable that the most serious abuses occur in these last two non-Gulf countries. One death a week in Lebanon means over 355 per year, and the true number may be higher. And how many more survive under serious abuse?
I must add that, being from a Gulf country, I know that there are many, perhaps most, families in the region that treat their help decently, almost certainly more decently than in such sharp-edged places like Jordan and Lebanon. But there is no doubt that they all underpay them and most overwork them by American standards. The oligarchs are afraid to change that for the usual political reasons.That way everybody has some underling to push around.
Cheers and Ramadan Kareem
mhg
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