The Maid's Tale

A domestic worker in Dubai, "Jane", has given a testimony of her job and life. It's republished below, slightly edited for punctuation:

"Hi.. I worked in JUMEIRA as a DH.. for 4 years and 5 months.. to a good arab family.. I dont have any comments for them because they are so good to me. They don't look at me as a maid but as a sister to them.. but some of the agencies are taking for granted about the salary.. they get some extra.. which is.. that extra is a big help for our family.

"The problem is... some of the employers.. same my employer are abusing me, like they don't even tell me, if I eat or no? Because they want me to stay all the time with the kids, or tell me to go and sleep just for 30 minutes. You know 5 minutes closing my eyes it's like 1 day of sleeping for me, or I can't even go to the bathroom leaving the children because they are just very busy of talking the phone from morning until evening. Instead, I would find way, how to go and make a release.

"Or I went to some places which is so class or social places without changing my clothes for the reason that she forget to tell me, while I'm so shy and felt embarassed with my kabayan. You know, just uttering those simple words without action is very hard for them while they're doing nothing. Working from 6:00am to 11:pm, sometimes 2:00am or 3:00am is optional when have parties or weddings. Tell me, who is not tired of working and can't have even a nap just for a minutes.

"They know that I am good and I do all the works and taking care of children is really important which is the big factor for them. And they don't even want to find another until I become old. I'm talking about my efforts, they took out from me because they think I'm always ok even they saw me with their eyes that I'm tired everytime.

"They don't mind me because they think they gave me good salaries which is 700Dhs. for 4 years and 5 months without day-off. And I spent with my own money buying those necessary things even they knew that it is their obligations to buy for us. What you expect from it? How much is left from my salary? As long as they can get benefits from me.. they don't mind me at all.. just because I'm so good to them while they are taking for granted.

"Mostly, the problem with arab people are being a LAZY. Machines will sometimes not function or shutdown reading all the datas, how much more the human?"


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Tahiya's tale

Tahiya was a young Bangladeshi girl whose older sister, Asma, had worked as a housemaid in Dubai for several years. Her employers were very good people, and when the wife's cousin needed a housemaid, they recommended Tahiya.

Tahiya came over to Dubai to work for the cousin and his wife, who lived nearby in Jumeirah. Tahiya was supposed to be about 21, but she looked around 16 and may well have lied about her age in order to get overseas employment. She spent most of her days off with her elder sister, and was a happy and spirited girl.

One summer Tahiya's employers went overseas. While they were away Asma visited Tahiya and found her bleeding and in great pain. Asma called her "madam" (her female employer) who quickly drove Tahiya to a private hospital - some sixth sense stopped her choosing a cheaper, government clinic.

It turned out that Tahiya had suffered a miscarriage. A Bangladeshi handyman had been hanging around the villa during the summer, and the obvious happened. The hospital said there was very little they could do for Tahiya, because the necessary medical prodecure (a dilation and curretage) would have to be reported to the authorities, since Tahiya was unmarried.

So after Tahiya had received basic treatment, Asma's employer drove both sisters to the airport and bought them a ticket to Bangladesh, where Tahiya could get proper medical care without fear of prosecution.

Four years later, Tahiya is back in Dubai working as a housemaid again. She has not had a very happy life since. She married a man in Bangladesh but he severely physically abused her, and they divorced. Luckily Asma was able to find her another good situation in Jumeirah. But Tahiya no longer looks like an impish young girl. Her ordeals have taken their toll, and she now looks considerably older than her years.

Maid in Dubai

Maids: just because you sponsor them, it doesn't mean you own them. They're not serfs, they're not in indentured labour, they're not children with a curfew or soldiers going awol. If they leave, they leave:

[Brigadier Mohammad Al Merri, Director-General of DNRD] warned the public not to employ a runaway housemaid. "She could be suffering from an infectious diseases or she may have committed a crime or she is involved in some other dangerous issues," he said.

Or maybe she was ill-treated and abused by the family? Or maybe the 24/7 workload and minimal pay was not enough? Or maybe she just changed her mind?

The problem is that it costs Dh15,000 to sponsor a domestic worker, which creates an uneasy sense of bondage between the worker and the employing family. There's no way the average domestic worker could ever compensate the employer if he or she leaves early. And yet he or she is still a free individual who should be able to leave at any time.

A better solution would be to employ domestic workers through a centralised agency that acts as their sponsor, rather like Tecom. The agency brings in x number of domestic workers every year. Families pay the same effective fee to this agency to hire them. But if the worker is unhappy or unsuitable, the agency provides a substitute at no extra cost. The agency also monitors the welfare of domestic workers, and arbitrates in cases of dispute or abuse.

If it costs a bit more to provide these services, then so be it. If someone can afford Dh10,000 a year they can easily afford an extra Dh2,000 or so. And if not, they can hire a part time worker instead and spend a day a week scrubbing their own damn floors.

Labour pain relief

The sentiment is commendable, it's just a shame it has taken this long:

Dubai: All necessary measures must be taken to ensure the rights of expatriate workers are protected and their living and working conditions are significantly improved, His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai has ordered authorities yesterday.

This part is particularly significant:

And in a groundbreaking move, [Sheikh Mohammed] instructed the Naturalisation and Residency Department to implement special contracts between domestic workers (servants and housemaids) and their employers that limit their working hours and grant them their full rights.

Sadly, too many domestic workers are treated at best as serfs, at worst as slaves by some families. Contracts is a start, but outsourcing their sponsorship to a government agency or recruitment firm would be better.

A Sharjah ghost story

For Hallowe'en, Inge reveals a chilling tale that happened to some Scandinavian friends living in a flat in Sharjah. The couple owned two cats, one of which started acting very strangely as soon as they moved in. It became constantly nervous, and refused ever to come out from under one of the beds.

Then one of the couple's parents came to visit. The father was known for being sensitive to certain phenomenon, and he instantly detected something wrong with the flat. He said it was in the long corridor that ran past the bedrooms, but he couldn't tell what it was, just a presence. Not a malevolent one, just a strange sadness.

Some time after, friends of the couple got some photos developed of a party at the flat. They were surprised to see the figure of an Indian lady standing in the corridor. The party had been all Scandinavians, and the couple had no other visitors or maid at the time.

When the friends showed the photos to the couple, they were astonished. For some time they had been noticing what appeared to be a reflection on their balcony, as they sat inside. They had assumed it was someone from a neighbouring flat, mirrored onto their window by some trick of the light. When they saw the photo of the strange Indian lady in the corridor, they recognised it as the mysterious figure on the balcony.

A few investigations took place, and other tenants revealed the sad tale of a housemaid who had jumped to her death from the very same balcony. Finally they took the photo to the building watchman, who recognised it as the same woman.

When they finally moved, the scaredy-cat became normal again the second it entered the new house, all nervousness gone.

Stoned to death

Extreme sharia is still live and well in Fujairah it seems, with a man sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery:

The man admitted to being married and unable to bring his wife who stayed home with his children, and added that he met the maid in a market, and repetitively practised adultery with her since then. He was referred to the court, which ordered him to be stoned to death, and the maid to be imprisoned for one year and given 100 lashes.

The maid got a lighter sentence because she wasn't already married. Most likely the stoning will be commuted to jail and deportation on appeal (or through pressure from the Federal government). This is not the kind of publicity the UAE needs right now.

The Erring Eye

Where to start with the glaring mistakes, misunderstandings and swallowed-down-myths in this Asia Times "Roving Eye - Dubai" article?

1. "Dubai... is a self-described "door to a market of more than 1 billion consumers"."
"Self-described" for a very good reason: it's completely misleading. The vast majority of the billion "consumers" at Dubai's door are dollar-a-day third-worlders. They won't be turning up for a luxury stay at the Ritz Dubailand any time soon.

2. "Most of all, [Sheikh Zayed] had every reason to be proud of his family's intuition and business acumen - as already in the 1940s they had decided to drain Dubai's port while competitors were sleeping."
No. Zayed's family are the Al Nahyans. The Maktoums run Dubai and dredged the Creek. And the "competition" was Sharjah, part of the UAE. And the Creek was actually dredged in the 1950s and Port Rashid built in the 1960s.

3. "Sheikh Zayed was promised as he lay dying that Dubai would continue to flourish - even without gambling casinos. Not for long, it now seems. Arab Las Vegas, anyone?"
Does anyone else find this touching deathbed scene more than a little absurd to imagine? Not to mention completely irrelevant, as Zayed's main concern would have been Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, and the UAE as a whole.

4. "In this mish-mash of wealthy Arab women covered in silk black chadors"
Try black georgette abayas.

5. "armies of men in dishdashas and fake gold Rolexes"
Try solid gold. Fakes are for tourists and expats.

6. "In the totally deregulated airport, anyone may land piloting any sort of aircraft."
Time to patch up the Zeppelin with sellotape and book a landing slot - the DCA will be waiting with open arms.

7. "Dubai remains in essence a protectorate - a status not substantially different from the tribal sheikhdoms dominated by the British until 1971."
Just like New York is a protectorate of Washington. (Did someone forget to decommission the Trucial Scouts?)

8. "During the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, Dubai was neutral. Thus no al-Qaeda attacks [...] an al-Qaeda attack on Dubai remains unlikely."
Sez who? Osama?

9. "If only Dubai realised that $300 billion would buy the entire outstanding debt of the developing world."
So? What's the point here, get the chequebook out? The US 2007 military budget is $463 billion, excluding Iraq.

10. "[Sheikh Mohammed] only acceded to power last January after the death of his elder brother"
No. Sheikh Mo has been in power as Crown Prince since 1995 and has singlehandedly driven the development of Dubai long before ascending to the Rulership.

11. "The "diversification" may have been one-sided so far - it revolves around tourism, real estate and commercial projects."
Surely this would make it three-sided? Quite apart from the fact that it also involves trade, heavy industry, aviation, finance, IT and media (unless they're all lumped in as "commercial").

12. "Five years ago, Dubai's Internet City was literally desert sand."
DIC opened in October 2000.

13. "Ibn Battuta... was reborn as a mall [with] "Chinese", "Indian", "Persian" or "Moroccan" halls."
Andalucia, Tunisia, Egypt, Persia, India, China. No Morocco. Nor is Morocco in any way interchangeable with Persia.

14. "If she's a woman and works as a maid or in a hotel, she can be sexually harassed - and there will be no recourse."
Sexual harassment is a crime in every emirate of the UAE. Her chances of succeeding in an action may be slim, but there is recourse.

15. "Foreign companies can only operate by paying a UAE kafeel (sponsor, guarantor)"
Not if they're in a freezone, where 100% foreign ownership is permitted.

16. "Everyone knows there's a property-market bubble and the stock market is bound to fall."
Terrible journalism. Nobody "knows". People suspect/predict/reckon/speculate and hedge their interests accordingly. And not everyone agrees...

Hell or high water

Fifty years ago, Rosa Parks made history by telling white man where to stick it. In 21st century Dubai, it seems her fight is far from over. Via Desert Idleness comes this disturbing complaint:

Dear Emaar

Last Friday I witnessed two houseservants walking in swimming costumes with a towel around them returning from using the Meadows 6 pool (the one totally surrounded by the villas). Are houseservants allowed to use the pools, personally I do not feel comfortable with this, if I go to the pool I like to be able to have a conversation and socialise with people I have something in common with.

If your security guys allow a few to use the pool then it will eventually be full with housemaids and their husbands etc. I am sure I am not alone in this feeling. Can you please advise Emaars views on this.

Yazzi

Well Yazzi, if the reassuringly disgusted responses to your complaint are anything to go by, you certainly have very little in common with anyone else at the SpringsMeadowsLakes. So you might want to consider removing yourself and your charming views - "Give a servant an inch and they will take a mile" - from the poolside instead.

A song of the sandlands

An intriguing sojourn tracking relict hominids in the Hindu Kuch allowed ample leisure for music-making around the campfire. In that remote mountainous wilderness, under endless sky and distant, icy stars, homesickness inspired a song of the sandlands:

The roadworks are such a bloody pain
Y viva Jumeira
My husband's shagged the maid again
Y viva Jumeira

It's gridlock rock around the clock
Y viva Al Deira
The hookers are strutting round the block
Y viva Al Deira

We're stuck in another traffic jam
Y viva Karama
The rent's soared but no one gives a damn
Y viva Karama

The workers still aren't getting paid
Y viva Marina
Our flat's worth half of what we paid
Y viva Marina

The Monica maids

A disturbing story in KT reveals that maids in Ras Al Khaimah are taking their inspiration from Monica Lewinsky when it comes to the evil weed:

"This paper has recently reported the case of two housemaids who tucked away money and cigarettes inside their sensitive parts to hide it from the police and their sponsors. In another bizarre incident, the RAK Court recently ordered the deportation of a housemaid on the charge of urinating into the food prepared for her employer and his family."

It's obviously quite a craze in Khaimah. Even more juicy details can be found in this older article:

"Besides the Filipina, two other Asian women were also examined and the search threw up 10 cigarettes each from their private parts. The two women wrapped up the cigarettes in plastic bags and tucked them away in their private parts."

Mute maids of the malls

It's a common sight across the UAE: a downtrodden-looking young maid, often Indonesian or Malaysian in appearance, pushing a child in a pram or pushchair. A hijab fully covers her hair, her eyes are lowered, and she does not look at or speak to anyone: not even the child, not even if it starts screaming or throwing a tantrum.

Usually this maid is working for a local family, who mill around nearby generally ignoring her. Less often the family are expat Arabs, or of European appearance.

Even those of us who don't have children must wonder how appropriate it is for an infant to be reared by a silent, effectively dumb, servile human being. What kind of message does it give out about human dignity and respect? What kind of stimulation does it give to small children in their most formative years?

Even if this subservience is only for the sake of public appearance, and the maid is in fact more relaxed and animated back at the family home, what example is it setting for the child that its hired carer should creep around in public like a muted mule?

Encouraging, then, to see the Sharjah Family Affairs Council questioning the practice:

"The conference... also advised nationals not to employ maids to raise children, since that would affect adversely the child's personality development."

One British couple had a live-in housekeeper at their Jumeirah villa. When they heard their children talking rudely and superciliously to her, as though she was a lesser human being, they instantly ended the arrangement, and had a professional cleaning lady visit in daytime hours only.

We are all born equal. We just don't all live to be treated equally.

The Barber and the Beautiful

What need to import soap operas when fascinatingly sordid drama is available right here right now? In this instance, a Filipino barber and his 21-year-old girlfriend, a housemaid, are being deported for an "illegitimate love affair". A crime that reminds us all that however nightclub-ridden and westernised the sandlands may appear, this is still very much a muslim country:

"In his statement to the police, the 23-year-old denied having an illicit affair. Meanwhile, the Filipina confessed that she was having a love affair with the barber.

"She alleged that she was having a similar affair with her sponsor.

"The Canadian sponsor denied her claims but his wife said she had suspected that something was going on between her housemaid and her husband."

Frankly, any westerner that calls the police to have someone prosecuted for something that is legal in their home country is loathesome and most probably a hypocrite. If one feels compelled to act/not tolerate a situation that is illegal here, the most humane thing to do is to dismiss the person, and firmly tell any third parties to make themselves scarce.

Such as the kind Jumeira Jane whose young maid got pregnant by a neighbouring houseboy, and miscarried. Her sponsor took her to a private hospital, where she wouldn't face too many questions, and then arranged a flight back to Bangladesh, where the young woman could receive appropriate medical treatment without fear of prosecution.

But we all know what happened here. Mr Canadian acted out of pure spite when he found his free bit of skirt schlepping someone younger and more attractive. Hopefully his poor wife will make full use of her home country's westernised laws to screw him for every last penny in alimony.

Collective concern

A interesting and alarming phenomenon in the wider region is the culture of gang rape. A significant proportion of rapes reported in the local media are carried out by two or more attackers.

This is a muslim rather than an Arab phenomenon because it takes place in non-Arab countries such as Pakistan, usually in the guise of tribalism and "honour"-killing, and Indonesia, often against ethnic Chinese women. Gang-rape is also committed outside the region by expatriates, for example in Australia or Norway.

The issue is not that muslim males are more likely to rape than non-muslim or western males. The point is that when rape does occur, it is often perpetrated by a group, and very often against a victim with (perceived) lower-status ethnicity.

The most recent case in the UAE (and it should be noted that unlike other countries such as Jordan or Pakistan, the authorities usually deal extremely severely with rapists here even if they are UAE nationals) is of four young Emirati men gang-raping an Indian woman. Last month a Bangladeshi girl was raped by two men. Archive searching finds a young woman raped and murdered by three Indian men, Filipina maids gang-raped in the UAE and Kuwait, a Burmese woman raped by three men, a Frenchwoman raped by three men and a maid in Bahrain raped by two men.

Even the extremely gentle and devout Hamid, during his troubles with a Jordanian golddigger, once complained to her:

"I treat you very well with all respect. I could bring my friends round and we could make you have sex with us but I don't because I love you and want to marry you."

There was no issue of Hamid ever forcing himself upon her alone, it could only be done with male back-up as a sort of collaborative ritual.

When you ask women in the West what their image of a rapist is, the answer will usually be a shabby-looking man lurking in an alleyway at night. In fact, the vast majority of rapists are known to their victims: they may be boyfriends, current or former husbands, dates, pick-ups in a bar or club. But it still tends to be a single offender, rather than several.

Maid of Honour

Cleanliness at Cell Block G has broken down to such an extent that the services of a maid are finally required. This brings with it a new dilemma: what will the maid expect? Jumeirah matrons - with their decades of experience as expat paleface wives managing all numbers of maids, cooks, houseboys, drivers, gardeners, and general staff - are a wealth of information.

"Rubber gloves. What nationality is she?"

Most probably Sri Lankan.

"Medium. Buy medium-sized gloves." (Which race uses the small size? Or are they exclusively for child labour?)

The very intermittent - frankly rare - floor cleaning at Guantanamo has so far been done through a novel form of domestic skating: industrial-strength kitchen wet-wipes positioned under foot, whereupon a form of sliding around takes place until the floor is very slightly less grimy looking than the wipes are. Sadly, it appears that the maid "will not understand" wet-wipes.

"Jif. All maids know Jif. They like Jif, because they know what it is."

A trip to the supermarket ends up costing twice as much as the maid will, as brand new sponges, cloths, scrapers, sprays, gloves and things are piled into the trolley, along with the magical Jif.

A first-aid kit could be a useful standby in case she faints with horror at the sight of the floor tiles: once white, now a richly coloured impressionist splattering of culinary mess. Aliens excavating Cell Block G in a thousand years' time will probably prize it as art. The maid is likely to be less appreciative.

Bring on the ladyboys

The UAE Marriage Fund is spending a million dirhams to find out how many local marriages end in divorce. This is the same Marriage Fund that already wasted several million dirhams funding 200 fraudulent matrimonials.

According to the Fund, average wedding ceremony spend is 170,000 dirhams, with many Emiratis taking out bank loans to cover the cost. This is small beer (or Bateel Date "Champagne") compared to royal weddings. One of the Maktoum family's wedding cakes cost US$25,000 for the sponge and icing alone, and was then studded with real emeralds, as gifts for guests. One imagines the little Bangladeshi maid of a particularly greedy guzzler forced to sift through her employer's sewage for days after the feast to retrieve an accidentally ingested gem.

Emirati weddings are interesting in that they are entirely segregated by gender: they consist of two separate parties in separate locations, finishing when the bridegroom finally gatecrashes the bints' bash claim his bride.

Apparently the big rage now at the female marriage parties is ladyboys, ''so they can secretly break with segregation customs.'' With silicone tits, snipped-bits and glitter-whore tranny outfits, they are presumably indistinguishable from the actual guests.

Arabic hospitality

Exasperating to hear Tanmia whingeing about the lack of nationals employed in the hospitality sector. Apparently there are only fifteen Emiratis employed in hotels in the entire Emirates. Human resource managers attribute this scarcity to long hours, shift work, low pay, and hospitality seen as "low grade" by locals.

Quite why anyone could imagine the average Emirati graduate getting up in the morning to a breakfast cooked by their Sri Lankan cook, dishdash nicely ironed by the Filipino maid, 4WD freshly washed by the Bangla houseboy and driven by the Keralite driver, to arrive at a hotel, put on overalls, and start cooking and cleaning for less money and longer hours than they pay their own servants, is anyone's guess.

The answer according to senior bureaucrats in goverment employment offices is for hotels to change working conditions and raise salaries.

This will of course result in the average hotel having a room rate ten times that of the Burj, and an occupancy ten times lower. (Which probably makes negative guests, perhaps there will be a form of dark-matter vacuum in every bed?) The one blessing will be the Torremolinos Trash never again returning to these shores, and an end to the road-blocking construction stretching from the Jumeirah Beach Hotel to the Sheraton as Dubai's tourism sector implodes.