According to a complaint filed this week in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. (thanks, tipster Ashwini!), in the summer of 2005 a Kuwaiti diplomat and his wife brought with them to the United States three Indian women as domestic workers. In order to obtain for the workers the appropriate visas, they presented contracts in which they promised each woman a monthly salary in the range of $1,300 for 8 hours of work per day, 6 days per week.
You know where this story is going. Once established at the residence at 7027 Elizabeth Drive in McLean, Va., according to the complaint, the couple proceeded to demand of the three women that they work non stop, 7 days a week, 18 hours a day, for which they were paid in the range of $250 each month, which they never saw as it was sent directly to their families.
The defendants, Waleed al-Saleh and his wife Maysaa al-Omar, abused the workers physically and emotionally:
They were subjected to threats and verbal and physical abuse, including one particularly violent incident in which Sabbithi was knocked unconscious after being thrown against a counter by Al Saleh. The women were often not allowed time to eat or to use the bathroom and frequently were deprived of food. Two of them were allowed one hour off a month to attend church. The workers had their passports taken away and they were isolated from contact with the external world.
“I was scared of my employers and believed that if I ran away or sought help they would harm me or maybe even kill me,” said Kumari Sabbithi, who is now living in New York. “I believed that I had no choice but to continue working for them even though they beat me and treated me worse than a slave.”
Some examples from the complaint:
Defendant Al Omar’s unending cruel treatment of Ms. Sabbithi included slapping her and hitting her with heavy objects. Defendant Al Omar also pulled her hair, and poked and pushed Ms. abbithi on the chest so regularly that Ms. Sabbithi often bore bruise marks.
On one occasion, after bending Ms. Sabbithi’s fingers and pushing them back towards Ms. Sabbithi’s chest, Defendant Al Omar then struck Ms. Sabbithi’s head against a wall several times.
On another occasion, after hurling a soup spoon at Ms. Sabbithi, Defendant Al Omar struck Ms. Sabbithi’s head with a heavy wooden box. As a result, Ms. Sabbithi had a large lump and a painful and swollen forehead for several days.
On numerous other occasions, Defendant Al Omar also threatened to kill Ms. Sabbithi and send her defiled body back to India. Ms. Sabbithi, who was aware of stories of domestic workers who were killed by their employers, believed these threats.
And it goes on and on: abuse, threats, confinement, horrible living conditions, petty punishments and restrictions, prohibition from approaching doors and windows, prohibition from communicating in languages other than English — which one woman spoke well, one poorly, and one almost not at all.
On a rare occasion when one of the young women was in front of the house by herself, she saw a neighbor across the street, Hector Rodriguez, and wanted to speak to him but was scared to do so. He called her over and she described the situation. He encouraged the women to escape and promised to help them if they did.
When the abuse of Mani Kumari Sabbithi got too extreme, the other women, Joaquina Quadros and Gila Sixtina Fernandes, told her she had to escape or risk being killed. She crossed the street, and Rodriguez called the police, who went to the house to investigate. The couple claimed diplomatic immunity.
Eventually the other two escaped to the neighbor’s house as well. Now all three women are living in New York, and the ACLU along with several private lawyers have filed the case in their behalf against the Kuwaiti couple and the government of Kuwait, which they allege knowingly permitted its diplomats to break American law. You can read the full text of the complaint here.
I’d love to be on this case! Now I am going to go fume about it in a corner before I type something really obscene in response.
To tell the truth, this is a fairly common predicament of house-maids who come from India,Bangladesh, SriLanka, Phillipines to the Middle east to work. The middle easterns who employ them have total power over them and if they aren’t good-natured, they can abuse them without anything serious happening to them. Honestly, one Kuwaiti citizen killed his maid and he was not sentenced to life, he wasnt given the death penalty, he wasnt sentenced at all. He was just asked to pay her house-members some 1000 KD(3000 dollars) and the matter was adjourned.
Noone here talks about it much but human rights abuse is more common in the middle east than you think.
I will definately follow this case. I am sure ACLU has lawyers who can handle the legal issues in this case, to get the victims some justice. If not, ACLU can post a message on this blog. There are plenty of smart lawyers here who can help.
As ‘NotReallyAlarmed’ said, it is quite a common occurrence, here in the Gulf, but is slowly changing, thanks, interestingly enough, to the Americans.
For example, here in Qatar, the country where USA’s Central Command is located, the govt. recently set up a Human Rights Committee (and by recent, I mean last year or two. See that’s how bad it used to be), which, while at present does nothing, has to face an increasingly vocal public. And, the govt. has to respond to the public because a major incident will be bad for the Americans, and therefore bad for the country.
So yeah, slowly, at least here, it’s changing.
Would ACLU be interested in a case where the victims are non-muslim and the perpertrators muslim?
I would love to be proven wrong in this case.
M. Nam
wow. just wow.
i’m going to go study for the lsat now.
Did you read the post?
ooh. nothing gets me more furious than the taking advantage of immigrants. i see it everyday. foreign workers working sixteen ours and making 25 dollars a day. doctors telling immigrants patient they need serious medical care just to get some extra cash. i ve seen mechanics do the same thing too.
these folks instill fear into the poor immigrants’ head and make ’em do anything. f’d up.
i wish the worst on this couple.
VERY heartening end to that story. Too much of this BS happens with immigrants who are irregular or employers who think they have immunity. There was a horrifying story like this in Baltimore a year or two ago, owners of a fancy sushi restaurant treated (illegal migrant) relatives from back home like slaves and were finally caught and sentenced.
Rohan, v interesting about the Centcom human rights committee. Hope it goes some way to change the mindset.
What’s really worrying is that in many contexts in India and in parts of the Middle East, keeping an underage domestic worker and not respecting any working hour limits, abusing them for minor infractions and so on is considered “normal” – not violation of rights, not slavery (though truth be told, it’s not as bad as what’s described above). I’ve shouted myself hoarse with relatives back home and nobody can see any problem with this treatment. We’ve discussed this before on SM, and I know it’s a touchy subject, but this blindness to domestic workers’ basic rights really upsets me.
I unfortunately share the sentiments of #2 as well. My mom lived in the middle east for over a decade and abuse of Sri Lankan maids was unfortunately all too common. But I’d like to add that I’ve heard this here in the US as well. So many of the shop owners in Jackson Heights and Bellerose regularly abuse the people they employ. Because the employees are illegal they suffer in silence and don’t take help even when offered. A restaurant we used to go to never allowed any tips to go to the employees and that was just the tip of the iceberg. It really is quite disgusting.
I think thats why it is important that this case becomes a precedant. (That means the advocates for the victims win against the powerful defendants). A verdict against powerful people who have dimplomatic immunity, will go a long way in sending a message to those who want to do human right abuses or continue doing them.
Seems like this kind of case is not that uncommon…
It really saddens me that in a modern world, we still see situations where people are treated like anything but human. No one deserves to be treated like a slave in the 21st century. What horrifies me is the unseen/unknown. Sure, we are able to address many of the situations that are made public, but what about the situations of human abuse that are kept extremely private and out of site? There are been many articles about people (cannot recall what country this took place) that were basically held as slaves picking cocoa for a large chocolate company and when investigators went to check out the situation, the cocoa pickers denied that they were mistreated. It makes me wonder if they were too scared to tell the truth or what? So, with these servants, I am currently pondering the same thing. Why didn’t they tell anybody? Were they threatened with death or were they desperately in need of the money they earn(that they didnt see)It bothers me that I cannot/may not ever know the true extenet of these inhumane conditions that still exist in the world because it is silenced in some way or fashion.
It is stories like this that make me realize how blessed I truly am.
what company? any linkage to the quakers? i’d be curious at what articles you read.
p.s. what happened to your blog?
Abuse of South Asian and South East Asians has been prevalent as long back the 1980’s at the time where the Persian Gulf was a haven of sorts to thousands of unemployed people. The Gulf is to South Indians what the USA is to a large number of Gujratis but thats where the similarity ends. There is little scope of progress as far as human rights is concerned for the mere fact that these expatriates have no hope of becoming citizens of the state.
I spent a major part of life in Qatar. I’ve heard many stories of the mistreatement of South Asian citizens by the locals, A few days back there was an incident there where two Qatari youths in a sports car sped down a street near a famous shopping mall and threw half eaten food and an empty can of soda at the face of a worker who was sitting and waiting for a bus to go back home. They rolled up the window and drove away laughing.
Some of the blame rests with the Asians too as they still keep coming to the Persian Gulf inspite of the all the reports of ill treatement. The surrender of passports and the like are common throughout. Since many south asians work as domestic help or labor they are seen as being on the bottom rung of society by a majority of locals. Hopefully as more people gain expertise in the subcontinents booming economy maybe their status in society will rise.
Yes. And more.
What the hell…Are you seriously blaming people for trying to find jobs?
So..hopefully as people climb up the social ladder and increase their status in society they will be less deserving of inhumane treatement?
Since they set precedent by commenting on Shilpa’s treatment in the UK, it would be nice to hear the Indian government also comment on this case and on the thousands of other cases of abuse of Indian migrant workers in the middle east. I hope to see the Indian government raise the issue with the Kuwaiti government as well
Obviously not well enough 🙁
M. Nam
Why do people hand over their passports to their employers? That is the craziest thing I ever heard. Why don’t they just make photo-copies and hand them over?
Why do people hand over their passports to their employers?
Or else they will be deported. These people have paid tens of thousands of rupeess, that they have borrowed, to empoyment agents in India. They want to recover their initial investment and are willing to take shit for the money.
Indian passports have 2 categories you got Emigration clearance required [ECR] and Emmigration clearance not required [ECNR] all those with ECR passports receive government protection from Protector of Emmigration based in the Indian Embassy in these countries (maily gulf and eastern europe).
The other category that recieves real protection is the rich and famous, like Nusli Wadia carried a gun in his baggage and was let of at Dubai, you had bollywood guys doing coke in dubai and a fashion designer been caught with joints also let off due to high level intervention.
The saudis also after intese pleading let off an Indian guy off who was to be blinded as punishment for hitting some one in fight which an arab started resulting in the arab loosing his sight
I doubt governments in the Middle East give a flying fig about any complaints by the Indian government about the treatment of Indian citizens. On the other hand the various M.E governments will probably spend a fortune having their citizens defended if they happen to be arrested in another country on slavery charges.
Though it seems that there have been some legal victories in favor of Indian domestic workers against some of the abusers (but only here in the US) :
Indians abuse their domestics too. An uncle of mine, an Indian diplomat in DC, had one of his Indian maids run away. I think she joined a restaurant where I am sure the abuse continued. In the San Francisco Bay Area, there was a popular restaurant chain (Santa Clara and Berkeley)-the name escapes me– where there was a scandal some years ago (circa 1999). I have actually seen some of the slave labour in these Indian restaurants being physically abused–just like in India. For a very long time I didn’t go to Indian restaurants because I got indigestion.
But why would someone be deported for not handing over their personal passport to an employer – especially when the employer is a family in a home and the person is working in a home?
Where else in the world would an employee be required to keep their passport with their employer? I understand companies, employers, whatever needing a copy of the passports of all their employees… that is common – but the passport itself? What purpose does that serve?
As a traveller the one thing I make sure I have on me at all times, or stored in a safe place beyond the sight of anyone, is my passport. So I’m just wondering why is it that these people even think to give their passports over to another person? That thought would never enter my mind. And if I was asked to hand it over for whatever reason, I would just make a copy.
They are not being properly informed or educated about what a passport is, it’s importance, and it’s uses.
Because they have no choice. They don’t hand it over, they don’t get a job. How hard is that for you to understand? Very, apparently.
Quite the contrary. I suspect they could educate you about a few things.
I am pretty sure they are fairly educated about what passports are and what they are used for. Generally speaking, handing over the passport is part of the contract/condition of employment. These aren’t skill based jobs and there is plenty of demand for them. Workers aren’t in a position to negotiate. Employers want to hold on to the passports so that they have more flexibility over ensuring that workers don’t flee or change employers before completing their contractual agreements.
Good article on the subject: http://www.bahrainrights.org/node/101
don’t mean to gang up on you mistress of spice.
it’s more complicated than you can imagine. these immigrant workers were not just abused physically, but also dominated mentally.
it was a mindgame the couple was playing.
think about it. what really could they have done if they had made copies of their passport? it would’ve made no difference if they’d gone to the authorities with or without their documents. the employers had crossed the line long time ago.
i’ll tell you exactly what was going through the immigrant workers head. “i paid too much money to come to this point. and i’ll suffer a little bit longer just so my family back home is ensured a little security.”
Well Most Arab countries had dismal record on slavery and treatments of zanz and they did have their categories of house zanz’s such as an often quoted traveler whose writing by allmeans are smug and racist(ie view not standing). His name begins with Ibn but does not end in warraq.
But i do find it curious that a lot of indians knowingly go to work in such places and then complain about the bad treatment. Yet when there brethens were protesting George Bush’s trip in india, some indian americans were cheering that in approval.
I did not see any one protest when the king of saudi arabia came, nor did i see when Ahmedinijadad’s predicesor was in india Hell i did not even see any squeak out of them when tibetans were barred from protesting against the chinese.
But i was amused by the dumbasses cheering protests made against an american president. So i gave them a middle finger salute and left. PS it wasnt a leftie type meeting but TiE sponsored scholarship event.
Now lets see where they stand, I know where i do but i keep my distance from all orgs.
Yes… if they know whats in store for them they need to stop. The incident mentioned is one in thousands of cases, the Indian embassies in the Gulf have long warned people about the perils of working as domestic help or labor in these countries. And the embassies get visits from 400 people a day lately. All wanting some sort of justice from a building staffed by a meagre number of staff.
In the area that is the Persian gulf ….. Yes! its not pretty nor is it appealing but reality never is. I see your point but things don’t work that way. When i was in university and helped a rather confused Saudi student with his work and pass a course these were his words ” Back home our introduction to your people by our parents are as “Rafeeq”, most of who are ‘Mushrikeen'(idolaters)who have a repute of thievery and we are taught to be harsh with you as our parents portrayed your people as being below our status.
Due to the rising influence of Indians in the areas, the arabs nowadays are confused on how to treat them. Remember many of these states are monarchies and democracy is a myth. Expatriates have no say whatsover, the biggest restuarant franchise in Qatar is owned by an Indian from kerala( however 51% of the ownership is with a Qatari who reaps a lot of the moolah and only has to use his political connections to secure land rights). This seems to be the only way South asians are seen in a new lights. Complaining about human rights in the Persian gulf elicits a all too common reply from even liberal Arabs ” If they don’t like it they can go back”!!
I have noticed a double standard when it comes to this issue.
Most of the people who are being treated like slaves or worse, are having it done to them by mostly Arab and brown Muslims in places like Saudi Arabia and U.A.E or by Arab and brown muslims who live in the west. Yet the outrage in India and desi’s who live in the west is a joke.
Yet if this was being done in places like Sweden and Denmark and by whites then there would be a much bigger outrage especially in among Western Desi’s.
But maybe cause it brown on brown and the fact so many of these people who are to blame are muslims, Western liberal desi are afraid to say anything.
neel, I think you are referring to the sex trafficking of domestic workers by Lakireddy Bali Reddy.
That event was the beginning of my political awakening.
This story is completely atrocious. How can they claim diplomatic immunity for human trafficking?
Its the lure of money – which is quick to make in the Middle-East. Have you ever seen a slum in Delhi or Bombay? If you do, you’ll understand why people are ready to work in the Middle-East despite the pathetic treatment. Its something like Mexicans working for measly rates in CA since its a lot of money when they take it back home. Did anyone hear of the Indian guy who died working as a truck driver in Iraq?
When I was in school, a Kuwaiti student boasted about slapping his Indian driver back home in Kuwait. I spent the next 6 months fantasizing about slitting his throat.
Domestic abuse of South, East Asians is too common in the Gulf states. They have only recently stopped using Pakistani kids as camel jockeys in UAE.
Speaking of domestic help, the new trend in the Indian community is to hire Mexicans as help. Most of it is illegal. I was visiting someone recently and their 3 year old kid was speaking Spanish! For some reason, the desis who hire Mexicans are actually nicer to them when compared to how they treat their fellow desis.
exactly. i was in india this summer interviewing people and i met a few gentlemen who were gushing about being on their way to kuwait soon enough. i asked them why they’re going and they said well, here we get 5-600 rupees a month for building furniture. over there we get the equivalent of 3000-4000 rupees. huge difference.
also, on a related “diplomatic” topic, i remember reading this a few months ago, about our very own US of A using a kuwaiti company with a known record for abusing asian laborers for making our new embassy in baghdad.
This woman oozes class from every pore. Her calmness and poise in the face of adversity is reminiscent of legendary Indian women such as Sita, Rani of Jhansi, Sarojini Naidu and even Mother Teresa. Now, Abhishek Bachchan has a public responsibility to immediately dump Aishwarya Rai and marry Ms. Shetty. I hope they invite him over as a Mystery Guest as she is clearly in distress and needs all the support she can receive. Hopefully, once her inevitable victory has been achieved, the Indian government will have the sense to declare a Public Holiday to celebrate a monumental achievement.
Peace
Oops, wrong thread; lack of sleep, sobriety etc. Apologies all around
from the New Left Review:
AMFD – I’ve observed this too – funny, in a grim sort of way.
Though generally I agree that brown-on-brown abuse gets dismissed as somehow less offensive than firang-on-brown abuse (and in general, any “other” abusing “us” rather than “us” abusing our own). Rich obnoxious Gulf Arabs and Lebanese are notorious in the region for their mistreatment of Indian/Sri Lankan/Filipina maids, and they don’t stop there, they have an awful reputation in Egypt too, where they come to party in the summer and expect everyone around them to be fawning and submissive to abuse because they’re waving the $.
After all this abuse by the Qataris everyday, I go out for a drink in the evening and what do I get? Loud Americans hanging around drinking Coronas that taste like piss. I ask you: Can’t a hardworking Indian man drink his Kingfisher in peace? 😀
I beg to disagree……. Corona certainly does not taste like piss.
Well, it’s something we’ve been talking about recently as a community here in Qatar. By now, we’ve all heard about the horrendous labour camps with no air conditioning and miserable living areas, the inevitable overworking and underpaying/not paying of the labourers and so on.
We have an organisation here, known as the Indian Community Benevolent Fund, which helps out those workers who’ve not been paid and are stranded in the country, to return to India. ICBF does this by collecting funds from the local community.
I was talking to an uncle of mine, who runs his own business here, and he told me that the problem we have is the ‘chalta-hai’ attitude, where we aren’t just aware of the way the Indian are treated, and not even just labourers, but we come to expect this, and so get used to it.
On the other hand, we do have a big base of Indians here, a community without which the country wouldn’t survive, and we have the potential to change the way things are done. Instead of just collecting funds to pay off the workers, we should be, with the help of a lawyer, billing the original company/Qatari for all that money and making them pay.
It’s something that will happen, unfortunately it seems like only a big incident will speed things up, something like the news of someone who died because of the conditions, especially if we want the (understaffed and overworked) embassy to help out.
But yes, I remain optimistic that we can change the way things happen here in Qatar, because, believe it or not, the ruling family (extremely nice people, in fact) is aware of it, and will get around to doing something, it’s just not a priority, and requires a lot of political maneuvering because the perpetrators will be related to them and probably important people in the country.
Rohan,
Glad to see there is some hope… how long have you lived in Qatar btw?
Came here in 1991, so, it’s been 16 years now.
Did you go to school there ? Reason i’m asking is i know a Rohan Venkat who went to ideal indian school and i’m wondering if your the same.
Sorry for barging in, but is that seriously the name of the school? Oh man, I thought schools like Happy Public School, etc. existed only in Delhi and U.P.!
Nope, that really is the name of a prominent Indian school in Qatar.
Hector Rodriguez,wherever you are-you’re my hero. Unidos,latinos y indios!
Nope, Kesh, I used to go to MES, but never studied at IIS.
This has happened before in the US. A Saudi man was recently convicted for forced labour as he kept a 12 yr old Indonesian girl, abused her — basically the usual. After his conviction he stated that the US justice system was discriminatory towards Muslims as they were punishing “these basic Muslim behaviors” (his words). The Colorado Attorney general even flew to Saudi to assure Saudi sheikhs that he was receiving a fair trial. Earlier, a Saudi princess was convicted of similar crimes. They simply do not think anything is wrong with this. After all, Islam legalizes slavery though it commands believers to treat the slaves properly as far as possible. Slavery was only formally banned in Saudi Arabia in 1962, while massive amount of books are reurgitated on the Atlantic slave slave, the Arab slave trade which killed 9/10 young African children who were castrated has hardly any popular contemporary books on it. Jan Hogedoorn’s remains the seminal edition.
I would be interested in hearing from anyone who has successfully convinced their relatives back home to treat domestic workers more kindly and respectfully. My great-grandmother has a very screwed up relationship with the girl who helps her. It’s kind of a problem on both sides, though; some workers are brutalized by the treatment, and in turn will “get back” at their employer, particularly if the employer is relatively weak and elderly.