Enough of ignorance

Other Voices

EBy Ahmad Al Sarraf

nough is enough. I say enough of our ignorance, our empty allegations, and enough of lying to ourselves and to one another. The situation of the Filipino and other workers in Kuwait is unsatisfactory, often unfortunate, and could have been much better.

The testimony of all this are the shelter centers, domestic workers returning to recruitment offices, court cases, complaints at police stations, hospital records, continued absconding of domestic workers from their employers’ homes, and other issues, even though they are few as some claim and we wish, show malpractices, maltreatment and injustice are rampant and must be stopped.

Few people would believe that officers at many police stations in Kuwait will support the claim of a Sri Lankan or Indonesian maid, for example, filed against her Kuwaiti female sponsor, or will the police station waste time in looking at a complaint filed by a maid who does not know English or Arabic, so how can a complaint be registered in the absence of a translator?

Even some expatriates are known to maltreat the nannies, servants and this they have learned from the Kuwaitis, of course.

Some terms such as shelter centers, maids returned to recruitment offices, the price of the maid and other issues indicate discrimination is rampant contrary to the morals and laws against this category of people.

We say we are sure that a majority of the people treats their servants as members of their family, but a large proportion of others do not do so. Without laws

Al-Sarraf

in place they cannot be deterred from what they are doing to protect the rights of domestic workers and ensure that they are treated with dignity and protect them from physical abuse.

It is therefore necessary that our government move swiftly, firmly and unequivocally to show the world that human rights in Kuwait are protected, that we are committed to respecting the lives of others with dignity and that we have value for all people residing in the good land of Kuwait and that we put at their disposal everything to defend their rights and practice their religious and social rites freely.

The supervision of domestic workers should be transferred from the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor, which is most qualified to deal with this issue and this category of people.

We should not pay attention to the messages of some ‘idiots’ who pay this peaceful group of people their salaries and say they will not get the same in their home countries. This is not a secret it is a well-known fact and does not justify the maltreatment but it is shame to even make the mention of it.

No one pays anything for free, and if were good enough, many of our unemployed young people would work in restaurants, as we see the same thing happening in Bahrain, for example, instead of watching the ridiculous television programs, ordering fast foods and taking insulin shots.

The Philippine president speaks ‘politics’. He is free to say what he wants to say and has the right to prevent the citizens of his country from coming to Kuwait, but perhaps he could have been smarter than doing that. His pledge to bring home Filipinos from Kuwait who wish to return at the expense of his government does not mean anything and certainly no Filipino will respond to his call.

e-mail:

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