BEWARE GOAN MAIDS.
Thru this write-up I am cautioning all the would be Goan maids coming to
Kuwait and elsewhere to work as Maids. The following account of a Filipina
domestic appeared in the local daily Arab Times will give some information
of the brutality some of the Maids are undergoing in this part of the World.
Today it is for a poor 20 year Filipina girl and tomorrow it may be to any
of my Goan sisters. Hence beware Goan Maids. According to the news item
appeared in the Arab Times dated October 5, 2006, Miss Bainisa Sansaluna
came to Kuwait exactly a year ago to work as a domestic helper to alleviate
her poverty back at home but her dreams were totally shattered the moment
she stepped into the house of her Kuwaiti employer. On the very first day
of her arrival in the house her cruel Kuwaiti Madame took a pair of scissors
and cut her long and beautiful hair and started giving her tons of household
chores to do without any chance of rest. Though the poor girl was ready to
do any amount of work and to any length of time but was not ready to bear
the beatings, it was like living in a hell for her. The lady employer was
hitting her back with a wooden stick almost everyday for no reason at all
and on top of it she would take pleasure in hitting her poor servant.
Moreover, the lady employer would also command her other servant who is an
Indonesian to beat the Filipina servant and if the Indonesian refused to
beat then the madam would beat the Indonesian as well. During her stay in
that house she was not allowed to go out even to throw out the trash. She
was not allowed to communicate with her family at home. Moreover she was
not even paid her salary. During her long months of stay in that hellish
house she was allowed to rest only once and it was on the day when her
employer splashed boiling tea at her, scalding her nape and partially
balding the back of her head. Without even taking her to the Clinic, the
employer made the poor Filipina rest at home only on that day but on the
next day she was made to work again with all the blisters and pain. Finally
the ordeal of the suffering Filipina domestic helper came to an end on the
day when she was left alone in her room locked by her employer for three
days with only a few slices of bread to munch on. During these three days
according to her confession, the Filipina servant felt desperate to leave.
She was very hungry and weak. She felt like a dying candle and all her
strength had been consumed. She felt hopeless. The room where they locked
her was next to the roof top. Taking advantage of this she went out of the
window and on reaching on top of the roof she decided to commit suicide by
jumping from the roof top. It was at this moment some neighbours saw her
and immediately called the police who came rushing and saved the poor
Filipina girl. Then she was taken to the Police Station and after
completing the necessary formalities she was handed over to the Philippines
Embassy.
In response to this news item, I sent a rejoinder to Arab Times which
appeared on its issue dated 11.10.06. I am reproducing the same as below:
Quote This is in reference to the write-up in Arab Times dated 5th October
2006 regarding "Manila maid relates 9-month ordeal". First of all I admire
your daily for highlighting this issue very boldly so that people are
educated of the devilish sponsors who ill treat their servants so cruelly.
I am surprised how the Kuwaiti madam employer of the maid dared to cut the
beautiful hair of her maid!! It looks like "Les Miserables" of Victor Hugo
is re-enacted where poor young girl Fantine's long and beautiful hair was
cut by her employer out of jealousy. What happened in France centuries back
is still copied in Kuwait by the Kuwaiti Madam. Reading the account of the
Manila maid it looks to me it is nothing but misery only for her. This is
not an isolated incident happening in Kuwait. During my long years of stay
in Kuwait I have been hearing lot of such stories and yet it goes on and on
in Kuwait thereby giving a very bad image of the society where we are living
and earning our sustenance. On noticing such cruelties committed on weaker
section of the society, Mahatma Gandhi once said "The greatness of a society
lies in the treatment it metes out to its weaker section". What treatment
are we giving to our weaker section? I feel ashamed to be a part of the
society that harbours such cruel employers. It is the responsibility of all
the civilised people residing in Kuwait to circulate this news appeared in
Arab Times to their compatriots back home in their countries so that every
prospective maid or any domestic coming to work in Kuwait is alerted. I on
my part will surely circulate this news to my home country so that everybody
back home will take note of the cruelties some people are perpetrating on
innocent domestics. Maids and other domestics are not slaves to treat them
the way mediavel aristocrats treated once upon a time. Every expatriate who
is coming to Kuwait to work should be treated with respect and dignity.
Expatriates come to Kuwait not as beggars or as slaves. They are coming to
Kuwait to sell their services and as such their coming to Kuwait is nothing
but a commercial transaction. Every expatriate who comes to Kuwait is
brought to Kuwait by his employer and sponsor only and that too for his own
benefit and as such there is no favour involved.
But we have to remember that "Only a fraction of the Kuwaitis are indulging
in meting out cruelties to their domestic servants". Because of few cruel
Kuwaitis the image of entire Kuwaiti society is getting tarnished. Hence,
it is the responsibility of every Kuwaiti to work towards eradication of
such cruelties committed by their fellow citizens on expatriates especially
on domestic servants who hardly get any protection from the law. Those who
ill treat their servants and employees are committing a sin against their
own religion Unquote.
Since my coming to Kuwait I have been hearing and reading lot of stories of
maltreating of our sisters and mothers working in Kuwait as domestic
servants. They have been raped and physically assaulted. To take action on
their employers is not an easy task because victims and their relatives are
not in position to take action. If the Filipina maid had to commit suicide
her traumatic experience would have gone unnoticed and it would be dubbed as
she committed suicide either because of running away from her employer in
search of better job or something else. And in this case who would fight
for her case? The maids who are coming to work here in Kuwait first must
find out the standard, discipline and character of their prospective
employers. Direct recruitment is better than thru Agency. Agency supplied
maids are treated like animals, for Agencies human dignity is least
important, what matters to them is money and money only. If anything goes
wrong our Embassy is very weak to take action. When a Filipina is sentenced
for capital punishment a high level delegation or even cabinet rank minister
comes to Kuwait to probe this incident and find a solution to save his
compatriot but when any Indian is found in such a situation nobody bothers.
A few years back when our Goan brother Araujo was sentenced to death for
committing double murder in the bus his brother went to Indian Embassy
asking for filing Mercy Petition but he was treated very shabbily by Indian
Embassy. Our Embassy is not doing what other Embassies are doing, this is
the general opinion of the Indians in Kuwait. Besides, the Safe House kept
by Indian Embassy for the run -a - way maids due to maltreatment by their
employers was already closed by the Indian Embassy and in view of this there
is no place for the run -away maids to take refuge. In case any of our maids
is found in problem her closest and dearest should be contacted first in
Kuwait. The newly appointed NRI Commissioner in Goa Mr. Edward Faleiro will
surely help the suffering maids thru his good offices. Mr. Faleiro is
holding the cabinet rank and he can contact the Indian Embassy for any
eventuality. Besides, Edward Faleiro is also morally obligated to support
Kuwait Goans because once during the invasion of Kuwait his election
campaign was supported and financed by Kuwait Goan Evacuees Society.
Many of our priests and Tiatrists are regularly coming to Kuwait to make
money and to collect funds. Unfortunately none of them study the problems
we are facing here and highlight it back home in Goa to alert the people in
Goa. By associating with tiatrists and even speaking to them from close
angle on this topic I found them that they are totally disinterested on such
topics. The topics of most of them is how to misbehave and enjoy at the
cost of innocent Goans in Kuwait. I can understand this attitude from many
of the tiatrists who are intellectually bankrupt and socially and
educationally backward whose scope of horizon is nothing beyond the stage
but surely I cannot understand why the visiting priests are not doing much
on this topic. Many times visiting priests are acting like hungry for money
and other luxuries. Their interest many times I noticed only in collecting
funds and other financial benefits from Goans in Kuwait especially from the
poor domestics. A few years back one visiting priest while preaching from
the Alter asked the congregation thus if you are interested in giving me
anything then please give it soon because tomorrow I am leaving for Goa.
For this reason, the former Bishop of Kuwait prohibited visiting Goan
priests from fund collecting. So much so he even stopped Fr. Freddy from
organizing his Tiatro in the Church Hall saying it is not the job of a
priest to stage tiatros but to serve the community and poor Goan community
in Kuwait needs more help and not Tiatros. Some of the visiting priests
come to Kuwait as guests of their former mistresses. In view of this how
they will apply their minds in studying the sufferings and difficulties
people are undergoing in Kuwait? What some of the visiting priests know
from here is only a fraction of the whole.
When we started a movement in Goa against the invasion and in support of the
liberation of Kuwait, our opponents including some Arabs asked me "why you
are raising your voice in support of Kuwait when Kuwaitis are treating your
domestics so badly? My answer to them was this that though I condemn the
maltreatment of our maids in Kuwait but I will not stop from condemning Iraq
and I will not stop from supporting the liberation of Kuwait. Maids issue
and Kuwaits issue are two different and independent issues. One cannot be
linked with the other. Though I strongly condemn the maltreatment of
domestics and expatriates.
A.Veronica Fernandes,
Kuwait.
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