On first of this month, April 2007, the local Kuwaiti daily Arab Times published a very horrifying story on its front page of how a young Filipina maid was assaulted and tortured by her Kuwaiti Madam and her Egyptian husband. According to Arab Times story the young Filipina girl a graduate from Philippine came to Kuwait to work as domestic helper in January 2006. In the beginning she was treated well but gradually her woes started increasing and since last two months she was receiving beatings constantly from both her madam and her husband for no fault of her.
The beating was of such a high degree that as per the writer who saw her in the hospital, her face was swollen black and bluish, she cannot open her swollen left eye and can barely open her right eye. Her left arm was burnt with a flat iron by her lady employer while her right arm is wrapped with a bandage due to wounds she sustained when she escaped from the fourth floor of her employers’ residence in Salmiya, Kuwait. Further according to Arab Times she was almost starved of food as she was given only one hard bread to eat which she used to consume by dipping it into water. The poor Filipina’s beautiful long hair out of jealousy was cut by her Kuwaiti madame. She was not even given proper place and privacy in the house since she was made to sleep in the kitchen.
One fine day having no choice and listening to her inner voice, the Filipina maid refusing to bear further torturing from her barbarian employers decided to escape from the hell she was undergoing. By making use of the ropes from the clothesline in the balcony, she tied them together and went out of the broken window in the kitchen. Afraid of falling down while climbing down, with the help of God, she gradually stepped on the floor and rushed to the street where she came across a Kuwaiti in his car. Seeing her in this pathetic condition, the benevolent Kuwaiti took her to the nearest Police Station from where the authorities shifted her to the Hospital. This is the main story. In response to this story I sent my rejoinder to Arab Times which appeared on 4th of this month appreciating this exposure and condemning the torturing of maids in Kuwait by their ruthless and hardhearted employers and of course applauding the kind hearted Kuwaitis like the one who took the initiative to take the Filipina maid to the Police Station for further assistance.
Thru this writing of mine I would also like to make known to our Goan community that supplies innumerable house maids whom we call as Ayas to this country, how grimy the situation can happen to them too. In the past many of our maids suffered beatings, torturing and raping from the nasty employers in Kuwait and very many of them silently accepted this having no other choice since Goans are supposed to be docile. The situation becomes unbearable when there is nobody of a maid in Kuwait for her to communicate her woes or when nobody in Kuwait knows whereabouts and whatabouts of her. Many times dead bodies of the maids were sent back home for burial. I suggest if any foul play is suspected, the relatives back home should organize a Postmortem to get the real truth and disclose it to the concerned authorities and to the world thru media. Social and Human Rights Activists back home should be always vigilant to know the true stories of many of our maids suffering in Kuwait. Our maids working in the Gulf and Kuwait in particular should be given a feeling that they have somebody back at home to take care of their woes.
Some of the employers in Kuwait mainly the Kuwaitis have no humane hearts to treat their maids humanely; they think maids means just a doll or slave of olden days. Many of the Kuwaitis and others are not just fit to employ maids as maids because they don’t know how to treat human beings as human beings. Those employers who treat their maids badly are those who got no human decency, they lack deep cultural, historical and traditional background. They are possessed with animal instincts. They lack all the civilized attributes to employ maids and for this reasons they treat their maids as slaves. It is not just enough to have the financial power to employ the domestics but one must have the power of great mind and great heart to treat the domestics with due respect for their services and for their human attributes.
God has created human being of his own likeness. By physically abusing maids we abuse God too by abusing God’s likeness and yet we call ourselves as religious people believing in Holy Books. By ill treating God’s likeness we ill treat God also. This is not only an ordinary sin but a sacrilege which will send you directly into the Hell. In this context I would like to quote Pakistani President General Parvez Musharraf in his masterpiece autobiography “In The Line Of Fire” which he released recently and where he describes how they were made to treat their Turkish maid in their home when his father was posted in Turkey. Said Gen. Musharraf “We had a Turkish maid named Fatima whom we respectfully called Hanim, meaning “madame” – thus Fatima Hanim. Our parents made it a point that we show respect to elders regardless of their status in life. We were not allowed to call our domestic staff “servants” – they were employees who earned an honest living and deserve respect”.
Now I ask, who were Gen. Musharraf’s parents? They were not ordinary people from ordinary background. They were not ordinary illiterate people without strong cultural, traditional, historical and religious background. They were not rich with easy money gained through petrodollars but they were rich in heart. They were highly educated and highly literate parents with extremely pious Muslim background. General’s mother Zarin, as he indicated in his book was a graduate from Delhi University plus a Master’s degree from Lucknow University at a time when few Indian Muslim women ventured out to get even a basic education. Only after acquiring the educational degrees she got married to Gen. Musharraf’s father, Sayid Musharrafuddin who was also a graduate from the famous Aligarh Muslim University. Because Gen. Musharraf’s parents had superlative qualities in all respects they treated their maid with love, respect and dignity. Because she was treated well, Musharraf’s maid even volunteered to go to Pakistan and settle down there when Musharraf’s tenure ended in Turkey. What a colossal example of love the Turkish maid showed to Musharrafs for the excellent treatment she received!!
But when Iraq invaded Kuwait, with the exception of few maids whom we can count on our fingertips, all the maids employed in Kuwait left their employers for their home countries, some of them even forfeiting their salaries even in backlog and some even cursing their cruel employers for treating them badly, badly means beating and sexually abusing them against their wishes. If these same maids were treated nicely in Kuwait then they would have volunteered to die with their sponsors but some of them left cursing their employers for maltreating them saying “now it is your turn to face the music from the Iraqi invaders because “sword beget sword”. What sort of qualities the current maid employers in Kuwait are having that merit them to employ maids? If they had good qualities then their maids would not be escaping from their homes like the young Filipina with the help of rope as indicated above.
I caution Goans in Kuwait and back home also to be very careful of their womenfolk working in Kuwait. Their whereabouts and their current situation and status should be monitored carefully. In the past many of them have suffered a lot from the hands of cruel Kuwaiti employers. Earlier Goans were the major suppliers of maids in Kuwait but 20 years back Sri Lankan, Filipinas and Bangladeshis have increased their quotas. It is very many times risky for maids to work in Kuwait without having proper background of their employers. All are not decent, not civilized and not humane to treat their maids properly. Secondly our Indian Embassy is not properly equipped with proper system and proper personnel to support our citizens. Many times our Embassy staff looked like bankrupt to take care of our citizens. Do not expect much from NRI Commissioner Eduardo Faleiro either. He got his own personal interest and as a politician he will think of his own interest first.
Hence, NGO’s and other Human Rights Activists and Social Workers should be on prowl to know the exact situation of our maids working not only in Kuwait but also in other parts of the Gulf where the interest of locals are protected with much ferocity. Meantime, The Philippine Embassy has stepped in to tackle the case of the above Filipina maid and their Embassy will pursue it till the end as against the dormancy of our Embassy. Good that this young maid survived while escaping. If she had to fall down and die her employers would tell the authorities that she was fleeing with gold and money. In this case she would be treated as guilty and authorities would believe the version of employers because they are more powerful.
The beauty of a female lies in her beautiful hair and to protect this beauty the girls do their best to protect their hair by taking maximum care. Finally what happened? It was cut by her barbarian Kuwaiti lady employer. It is like cutting the beautiful hair out of jealously of the young and beautiful servant girl Fantine by her Employer in Victor Hugo’s French epic “Les Miserables”. Because of such cruelties, finally Victor Hugo in the same epic asks “Who said Europe is civilized? And for that matter France?”. In the same manner let me ask now in context with maid beatings, torturing and sexually abusing them in the Gulf and Kuwait in particular “And who said Gulf is civilized? And for that matter, who said Kuwait is civilized??” While concluding I must admire the Kuwaiti who helped this Filipina maid to take her to Police station. He proved to be a real “Bom Samaritan” as described in the Bible. Yes, he is the rare entity and as such he is the “example of past century” to quote Shakespehere in his last drama “As You Like It”. Such Kuwaitis are very few but they are existing in Kuwait and it is these Kuwaitis who enhance the good image of Kuwait. They take maximum care of their servants and their needs. Not only the needs of their servants but also of their children back home in their countries. Some Kuwaitis have not only got the children of their servants educated with University degrees but also got the daughters of their servants married by giving dowries and doling visas to the sons and daughters of their servants. For such Kuwaitis I applaud and pray to God to give them good health and wisdom to treat their servants well and thereby create good image of Kuwait from where I earn my sustenance.
A. Veronica Fernandes,
Kuwait.
