Isn't slavery illegal? Well, defacto slavery may not be ...

May 8, 2005 7:39 AM

Sri Lankan Maids Pay Dearly for Perilous Jobs OverseasThe teacher held up an electric cake mixer and told the class of wide-eyed women before her to clean it properly. If it smells, "Mama," as the aspiring maids were instructed to call their female employers, "will be angry and she will hammer and beat you." Sriyantha Walpola for The New York Times More than a million Sri Lankans - roughly 1 in every 19 citizens - now work abroad, and nearly 600,000 are housemaids. Sriyantha Walpola for The New York Times Some maids being trained in Kegalla, Sri Lanka, will find brutal work conditions in the Middle East. "This is where you go wrong," the teacher continued. "That is how Mama beats you and burns you - when you do anything wrong."
posted by kmtharakan (27 comments total)

Tell ya what, I'll throw in another link for you. Get your maids here.

Get 'em while they're hot, get 'em while they're buttered.
posted by jmgorman at 8:17 AM on May 8, 2005

I'll see your link and raise you one.
posted by exlotuseater at 8:31 AM on May 8, 2005

The same for philipino and indonesian maids in singapore and malaysia.
posted by infini at 8:41 AM on May 8, 2005

So, what are y'all going to do about it?
posted by mischief at 9:03 AM on May 8, 2005

i'm telling Sriyantha Walpola for The New York Times.
posted by quonsar at 9:04 AM on May 8, 2005

I'm invading Saudi Arabia.
posted by jfuller at 9:10 AM on May 8, 2005

Sri Lanka has had the triple whammy -- poverty, civil war then the tsunami. And they are the friendliest people on the planet.
It is hard to do anything other than be aware and donate when the opportunity arises.
Flip's easy when it's not in your backyard. Better than thinking or contributing or even passing by in silence.
posted by peacay at 9:25 AM on May 8, 2005

I found this to be the most disturbing sentence in the entire article:

Given the high incidence of fathers raping daughters with wives away, the housemaids were told not to entrust older girls to their fathers.
posted by amber_dale at 9:32 AM on May 8, 2005

My wife and I had a Sri Lankan maid (and before that, a Filipino one) when I lived in Hong Kong. We treated her well, but we had to "rescue" her from a Sri Lankan expat family who treated her very poorly -- in many Asian and Middle Eastern countries, just the fact that you need to resort to servant work makes it permissible to treat you like dirt. I've seen appalling treatment of domestic workers by people who I would never suspect were capable of such cruelty.

The Sri Lankans and the Filipinos have a very high literacy rate -- many newspaper subeditors for English publications in Asia are Sri Lankan -- which makes it especially tragic. Among the Filipino maids I knew an economist and a schoolteacher.
posted by QuietDesperation at 10:18 AM on May 8, 2005

We may or may not have Sri Lankan slaves in our backyard, but we don't have a firm footing on the moral highground.

Good albeit troubling post, kmtharakan. There are some community action suggestions for those who want to get involved in stopping this and other instances of slavery put together by iAbolish.
posted by madamjujujive at 10:20 AM on May 8, 2005

I'm not sure I follow why a high literacy rate makes abuse more tragic QuietDesperation? I'm actually curious. I certainly don't expect you meant it any contemptuous way whatsoever.
madamjujujive that 2nd link is good, not just for action. Testimony to the House of Reps in March was given on this very topic.
Bio of witness and her autobiography.
posted by peacay at 10:32 AM on May 8, 2005

I'm not sure I follow why a high literacy rate makes abuse more tragic QuietDesperation?

I am guessing that the abuse is not more tragic, but that there is additional tragedy in wasted potential.
posted by StickyCarpet at 10:51 AM on May 8, 2005

Yeah...I probably just construed it in my head or something. Withdrawn.
posted by peacay at 10:55 AM on May 8, 2005

My family used to have a Sri Lankan maid when we lived in Bahrain. We weren't used to being expats, so we paid her and all the other service people we were expected to employ what we considered to be a fair price. Word got out and the neighborhood came down on us for overpaying the help which was causing much agitation amongst the other maids, gardeners, and car-washers. We paid her well, bought her gifts, and helped her with whatever she needed. Apparently, working for American families was an ideal situation. We were considered total pushovers, which I like to translate as being nice, decent people with respect for other human beings.
posted by TheGoldenOne at 11:26 AM on May 8, 2005

The same for Filipina and Indonesian maids in Singapore and Malaysia.

There's also a lot of abuse of Filipina maids in Taiwan.
posted by jiawen at 12:10 PM on May 8, 2005

I'm not sure I follow why a high literacy rate makes abuse more tragic QuietDesperation? I'm actually curious. I certainly don't expect you meant it any contemptuous way whatsoever.

Maybe because we are taught that education will empower people to solve their problems and lift themselves out of poverty - and here are these maids, literate and at least somewhat educated (by global standards), and here's what they can show for it. And it's not even unusual.

Isn't literacy rate one of the factors used to evaluate a country's potential or its standard of living or its overall hopelessness?
posted by dilettante at 12:25 PM on May 8, 2005

When I lived in Morocco many years ago we had a maid as well, just went with the territory. She was pretty much a member of the family, took care of the kids, did laundry (my mom sometimes helped out with that too, as well as a few other 'maid' things). My mom said she was kind of like a sister away from home. Once every week or so the maids would all get together in their sponsor's homes to visit and have a 'coffee klatch' kinda thing. We also visited her in her house a couple of times for massive feasts. Really fond memories of Kabara . . . Shame about the Sri-Lankan thing. . . It would seem like we should be focusing on these kinds of problems rather than the imaginary 'war on terror'.
posted by mk1gti at 12:50 PM on May 8, 2005

Wow, you are a nostalgic group today.

I'm currently living in a country where having a maid "goes with the territory." My wife and I both work (no children) and despite frequent solicitations for maid services -- and quite a few other services, I might add -- we haven't stomached the idea.

I've seen appalling treatment of domestic workers by people who I would never suspect were capable of such cruelty.

Not to be judgemental, but I have to say that ever since being in Africa I am quite intrigued at how quickly people fall for the instant nanny/cook/gardener/chauffeur/floor-scrubber deal. Much less how they treat them. Being surrounded by dirt poor people seems to go to some peoples heads.

The kicker is that a lot of these people came in the first place because of their "ideals."
posted by pwedza at 3:51 PM on May 8, 2005

I'm not sure I follow why a high literacy rate makes abuse more tragic QuietDesperation? I'm actually curious.

Strikes me as a bit disingenous query. Others here have inferred and stated the reasoning behind what I said. To imply that there is nothing tragic about their wasted education is to declare meaningless their struggle to become an educated society, is it not?
posted by QuietDesperation at 3:59 PM on May 8, 2005

pwedza,
There doesn't seem to be anything inherently incompatible with having ideals and hiring help. As long as you are treating them fairly and with respect, what's wrong with giving people steady work that they otherwise wouldn't have? Doing yardwork or cleaning is not beneath human dignity, and if you can afford to spread some of your money into the local economy, why not?
posted by Sangermaine at 4:58 PM on May 8, 2005

I must agree with Sangermaine. I've lived in India and we had a houseboy, driver and many daily workers like the garbage collector, dhobi, cleaner, guy who washes the car etc. Our little houseboy was 12 when his father passed away in the village, suddenly this boy was supporting his mother and siblings from his "job" in the city. Was that unidealistic to continue to employ him and thus help more than 7 or 8 people, or is it better to stay on your high horse in a society with welfare benefits and security nets ?
posted by infini at 6:23 PM on May 8, 2005

In Frederick Pohl's dystopian near-future novel JEM, the world is divided into three political blocs based on their major resources: Food, Fuel, and People. The People Bloc is essentially involved in exporting its citizens for economic gain.

There are too many people with a devil's bargain here. The countries have no incentive to crack down on abuses. The families themselves are disincentivized from standing up for their women's rights, because it will likely end a stream of income. There's always a cheaper source of labor, where "cheap" means "trouble-free" as well as inexpensive.

Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf nations need to be pressured, but it can probably only happen if all the supplier nations work together in concert through the UN. That's a path to a solution that might take decades. We may as well wait for Peak Oil.

The other angle of attack is raising the living standards in these countries and reducing the birthrate, a natural byproduct of urbanization and industrialization. This will have the salutary side-effect, of course, of hastening Peak Oil. It might not be so good for us here, unless we're in the import-export business.
posted by dhartung at 7:16 PM on May 8, 2005

Whoa, whoa... Peak Oil's here?
posted by Krrrlson at 8:36 PM on May 8, 2005

yes! peak oil! i love it!
posted by blacklite at 11:14 PM on May 8, 2005

What are we supposed to do about it?

I think that we have to work on four levels - one, when we have help, paying them well; two, reform work - changing international immigration and global trade laws; three, revolution work - developing a coherent vision of an alternative society and economy and working to make it possible; four, prayer work.
posted by By The Grace of God at 5:09 AM on May 9, 2005

QuietDesperation, my query was pretty well uncalled for which I kind of acknowledged.
I had been misconstruing actually. sorry
posted by peacay at 8:43 AM on May 9, 2005

I think that we have to work on four levels - one, when we have help, paying them well; two, reform work - changing international immigration and global trade laws; three, revolution work - developing a coherent vision of an alternative society and economy and working to make it possible; four, prayer work.
posted by By The Grace of God at 5:09 AM PST on May 9 [!]



Wait a minute, while the abuse of household help is a terrible thing and must be prevented, you're suggesting we do away with servants altogether?

one - within a country you can't pay them at international levels because it will throw the payscales off balance.

two - changing immigration laws? how does that help other than stop what little money does get back to Sri Lanka and the Phillipines and the rest of the places they originate from? Besides, Sri Lankans in Sri Lanka will continue to hire and keep local servants. Or are you proposing to do away with this across the board?

three - wha...aa?

ok it's 5pm for me, long day
posted by infini at 2:15 PM on May 9, 2005