Ethiopian Domestic Workers Battle for Survival in Saudi Arabia
In 2018 Rabiya Jaffery was one of 10 fellows selected by the Ethical Journalism Network and the International Labour Organisation for the second stage Fairway Fellowship to support quality reporting on labour migration in the Gulf States, Jordan and Lebanon.
As part of the ILO/EJN fellowship on labour migration Rabiya Jaffery, a journalist and multimedia producer based between the UAE and Saudi Arabia wrote this article for IPS News Agency.
Rabiya Jaffery
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Sep 21 2018 (IPS) – Marjani F, 44, spent 8 years in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital working as domestic help. “My husband was killed by the military after being accused of organizing a protest. I have four children and there was no way I could pay the bills staying there,” she says.
For nearly a decade, she lived and worked as an undocumented domestic worker employed by a Saudi family until she was deported in 2017.
“The rules on keeping workers who don’t have their papers are getting stricter and the family I worked for were scared they would have to pay heavy fines,” she explains. “They knew someone who had to pay penalty for keeping undocumented help and I guess they got scared – but didn’t want to pay for my sponsorship either so they sent me back.”
Marjani is now living in Bahir Dar, a city in Ethiopia, and describes her life back home as “hopeless”.
“My children aren’t even close to me anymore – I was just someone who would send them money and speak on the phone every now and then for so long,” she says. “And most of my family has been killed in political protests or are in military camps now – it is all futile.”
Marjani was one of the reportedly 5 million undocumented migrants living in Saudi Arabia – a country with an official population of 33 million.
“For the most part – the authorities had turned a blind eye to them,” says Abdullah Harith, a migrant lawyer working in the Gulf countries. “Every few years there would be a couple of crackdowns and some people would be deported back – but overall for decades, the millions of undocumented migrants – some who have been living in the country for generations at this point – were just overlooked.”
But this leniency have changed radically recently as the Kingdom is now actively seeking to deport them as part of its new economic reforms agenda.
Read the full article on the IPS News Agency.
In 2018 Rabiya Jaffery was one of 10 fellows selected by the Ethical Journalism Network and the International Labour Organisation for the second stage Fairway Fellowship to support quality reporting on labour migration in the Gulf States, Jordan and Lebanon.
As part of the ILO/EJN fellowship on labour migration Rabiya Jaffery, a journalist and multimedia producer based between the UAE and Saudi Arabia wrote the above article for IPS News Agency.
Main image: African refugees await news of their work and residency visa applicatiosn in Lavinsky Park near the Tel Aviv, Israel. Credit: Zack Baddorf/ZUMA Press/IPS