Despite news of torture, female workers still seek Saudi jobs

The number of women workers leaving for Saudi Arabia for jobs has increased in recent months despite reports of physical and mental tortures there have already forced many to return home. According to the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) data about 39,578 women migrants went to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) with jobs in the first five months of the year. The data reveals that KSA recruited 9,476 women in May and 8,492 in April this year.
During the same period of 2017, the KSA hired 37,856 domestic helps from the country. Of them, about 1000 female workers have returned home in the last six months because of workplace torture and sexual abuse by their employers.  We also got to know from a recent study of International Organization for Migration that many women workers in the Middle East signed employment contracts without understanding the terms and conditions eventually leading them to subject to discrimination and abuse. However, many experts noted that most of the female workers going abroad are unskilled, unable to communicate properly with their employers due to language problem.

 "Female workers should be literate so that they can understand the language of the contact paper they sign. If government maintains this issue, recruiting literate domestic helps then we can protect the dignity and safety of our workers," said advocate Salma Ali, Executive Director of the Bangladesh     Women Lawyers Association said in a telephone interview. 

They are not able to meet their job's requirement due to lack of proper training, become subjected to inhumane torture, sexual assault and are denied salaries, she also added. Advocate Salma Ali, suggested that the government should not allow a single female migrant worker to go abroad for working before ensuring their safety, dignity and rights. "Our female migrant workers have endured endless physical and mental tortures. And Saudi government has done little to stop such criminal behaviours and protect our female workers," she said.  Advocate Elina Khan, Executive Director of Human Rights Implementation Organisation suggested that the government should take effective steps while negotiating the overseas employment of the female workers.

"The respective government officials who negotiate such deals, they should put some conditions for the women workers.  The negotiation should include fair wages and humane treatment.  Not only that, it also should be written in the negotiation that employers will be brought to book if they misbehave with their employees, she said.  However the officials of the Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Ministry claimed that the ministry had taken an initiative to tighten the selection process of women workers to help cheek workplace abuse.

Talking to the Daily Observer Namita Halder, Secretary at the Ministry of Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment said as part of the process they are taking interview of the job seekers after their 30 days' training to know what they have learnt. Other migrant rights activists said the government should reconsider whether it would send domestic helps to the gulf country or not as long as their safety is concerned. They observed that such harassment would not be stopped without proper intervention by the Labour Department of the KSA.