How are migrant women treated in Middle East?

By Jafreen Alamgir

When a child cries for food, it is a woman who works to make him or her happy. When a child laughs, it is a woman who feels that they have accomplished something. But these emotions cannot be explicitly shown or understood because it is the affection of a mother. And a woman is a mother. In order to protect her children, a mother can take any risks you ask from them without evaluating the cost and benefits of migrating to a foreign country. I am not saying that men are useless or worthless. More emphasis is being placed on the way women, especially South Asian women who are being ill- treated in countries like Middle East.

Harassment is the main thing that women encounter while working for people living in countries like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and so on. Their employers don’t treat them properly. They are being deprived of basic human rights. They are made to stay in places where the quality of water and food is not good enough to survive. They are not paid salary in time . Their iqama are being snatched away from them and they are being trapped in houses of the owners. With insults, assaults and false allegations, they are being victims of psychological abuse.

It is sometimes argued that we need to encounter psychological abuses in order to have a practical view of the world. That is, a woman cannot expect her employer to be sweet and dedicated to her. But at least she should be at least treated like a human. She should not be made to work for more than 18 hours. That does not necessarily indicate the physical weakness of a woman, it is about her being a human, not a robot who can be made to work continuously for 24 hours. 

In the process of international migration, women may move away from situations where they are under traditional, patriarchal authority to situation in which they can exercise greater autonomy over their own lives. With the hope of fulfilling their dreams, they come abroad. And their wishes turn out to be a nightmare when they are mistreated by the employers when they are forced to have sex with the man and his acquaintances. If such cases happen, they are unable to ask for help from anyone around them. My question is why are women objectified like this? Are they no human beings like you?

Solutions only come when a person who does not just witness such cases, but use all their efforts to bring a change in the way women are viewed in the world. But I would ask more women to start a campaign that will be helpful for the governments of all countries to recognize the power of women.

Late blooming of women’s rights

Source: http://www.arabnews.com/news/497021

Islam has given women their rights to be educated, inherit, and to have a voice in domestic as well as public life 1,400 years ago when the rest of the world did not even consider women’s rights to be an issue. 

Ironically, the same religion is practiced nowadays in Saudi Arabia, which is the land of the birth of Islam, as a tool to justify violations of women’s rights. Unfortunately, some of the Arab or should one say tribal traditions and customs, which even predated Islam, have crept into our lives and got confused with Islamic teachings. As a result, many women have not only been oppressed, but they have been convinced that true gender equality is against their Islamic beliefs. This connotation has delayed the demand for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia in comparison with the rest of the world mainly because many people would question the piety of any woman who would demand true gender equality.

Accordingly, the recent emerge of women’s movement in Saudi Arabia has not been based on “secular feminism,” but is rather characterized by “Islamic feminism,” which is based on the belief that there is a possibility of having different interpretations of Islamic sacred texts, in which true gender equality can be found within the framework of Islam. Of course, conservative elements oppose this movement claiming that if it were true, great Muslim scholars would have thought of them earlier. Unfortunately, the claim asserts the sad reality of the patriarchal society we live in, where men cannot even fathom the idea that women can participate in a field that has been monopolized by men for so long. In addition, Islam is supposed to fit every age and place and this cannot happen if we refuse to allow the interpretations to evolve and change over time in order to reflect people’s educational, intellectual, and cultural backgrounds. 

The late modernization of Saudi Arabia has also contributed to the delay in the Saudi women’s movement. This has led women to stay preoccupied with strenuous domestic chores in addition to taking care of their kids, who used to have a high mortality rate up to the 1970s. Even when the country was modernized, modernity was “imported” from the West. 

This “importation” interfered with the normal transformation a society undergoes when it develops and evolves at its own rate creating intellectual gaps between people who come from diverse backgrounds in the first place. The “sudden” change also led conservatives to cling more to their old ways of life and to fear modernity, while others, especially women, found liberation and power in education. 

Another problem is that many legislations in Saudi Arabia reinforces men’s supremacist attitude toward women. For example, women of all ages need a male guardian even if her “guardian” himself believes that she is a capable, independent woman who should be allowed to travel, for example, without taking his permission. According to these legislations, a woman is so incapable of taking care of herself that if she is not married and her father passes away, her son could be assigned as her guardian. In this case, it seems that being a woman even precedes the honor of being a mother whom the Prophet (pbuh) asserts that heaven is under her feet, while she is obliged to take her son’s permission to take many legal and personal decisions.

In Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah’s reign, the development rate of women’s rights seems to have gathered pace, which include increasing female participation in the workforce and even allowing women to participate in the Shoura Council. 

The problem is that with the rapid increase of development, contradictions in women’s rights started to emerge as well. For example, women who live in Saudi Arabia are still not allowed to drive cars, which seems like one of the most basic rights women should have before holding any official position. 

However, the progress seems to start with the relatively least controversial issues to conservatives while at the same time it appears like a huge development to those who demand change. This means that the progress is not necessarily logically gradual, but rather “safely” gradual.

The progress of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia was late in comparison with their counterparts around the world not because Saudi women are weak or incapable because when given the chance they have proved to be strong and accomplished individuals in all areas of life. 

Saudi women who demand change are proud of their Islamic heritage and Arabic identity, but they are calling for the respect and the appreciation that they deserve. 

Therefore, legislations need to be changed and sometimes created in order to further empower women in Saudi Arabia. More importantly, culture should be differentiated from religion and oppressive actions should not be justified as part of our noble Islamic teachings.

Middle East labor attache charged with attempted rape

By Ina Reformina, ABS-CBN News
Posted at 09/25/2013 3:06 PM | Updated as of 09/25/2013 4:42 PM

MANILA, Philippines - A male Assistant Labor Attache assigned to a Philippine Embassy in the Middle East is facing charges of attempted rape and 3 counts of abuses against chastity before the Department of Justice (DOJ) in connection with the alleged "sex-for-flight" controversy.

The official, whom the DOJ has refused to name, allegedly victimized "3 distressed female overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who were seeking assistance from the Philippine Embassy."

The complaint stems from the Final Report submitted by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) which conducted a probe into the alleged scheme.

Also recommended to be charged with attempted rape and Abuses Against Chastity is the driver of the Labor Attache.

The Report was submitted to the DOJ, through Prosecutor General Claro Arellano, for appropriate action, such as the conduct of preliminary investigation, as well as to the office of Labor chief Rosalinda Baldoz for appropriate administrative proceedings and further investigation into other possible violations of labor laws.

The names of the alleged perpetrators and victims are withheld "due to the nature of the cases recommended to be filed, the DOJ said in a press statement.

Source: http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/global-filipino/09/25/13/middle-east-labor-attache-charged-rape


Contributed by Norhana Kamid

Paid mobs attempt to sexually harass women out of Tahrir

Change has been a constant fixture in the lives of Egyptians since the 2011 uprising which saw the fall of the 30-year Mubarak regime. The movement towards greater parity between the people and the government reached a second climax in early July 2013 when unprecedented numbers gathered across Egypt to call for the resignation of the first democratically elected president of Egypt, Mohammad Morsi.
For many, the political upheaval of recent years signalled a meaningful movement toward social progress. Many had hoped that the shift from the tyranny of the Mubarak era would mean secularism, greater personal liberty, and egalitarianism. Unfortunately for Egyptians, these freedoms, rights, and redresses have not yet been put in place.

A persistent problem

Chronic sexual harassment and assault of women has become one of the defining issues for human rights activists in Egypt. In recent decades the problem has intensified, reaching epidemic levels in recent years. A study by UN Women published earlier this year showed that 99.3% of Egyptian women have been sexually harassed.

A map showing self-reported sexual harassment incidents in Maadi, Egypt. Credit: HarassMap خريطة التحرش الجنسي Facebook page

The situation reached new, horrifying levels during the protests which began on June 30^th 2013. By July 9^th, there were 186 reported cases of mob assaults in Tahrir, including rape and rape with a bladed weapon. Witnesses often do nothing to help the victim, and many men participate in the assaults.
Activists report that attacks are occasionally instigated by men who are paid to target female protesters specifically in order to deter them from participating in public political life.
For every group of 50-100 assaulters around 5 are paid, according to volunteers from Operation Anti Sexual Harassment (OpAntiSH) and the HarassMap initiative. Organised sexual harassment and assault are intended to produce gender-specific forms of exclusion through terrorising women and girls.

Taking action on the ground

OpAntiSH are doing preventative work on the ground, working actively against sexual harassment and assault when they see it, and encouraging citizen participation via HarassMap, an online tool developed in 2010 which allows people to map the location of a sexual assault as it happens.
Noora Flinkman, a marketing and communications officer at HarassMap, elaborated on her group’s analysis that mob assaults are, in some cases, organised. ‘We believe that mob attacks have sometimes been, and sometimes still are, organized. Our experience working with OpAntiSH in Tahrir square shows that attacks often happen in very similar ways, following similar tactics and patterns, and often simultaneously.’ Noora also notes the extremely violent nature of the attacks, adding ‘attackers have sometimes used sharp objects to rape girls and women, and other weapons to keep our volunteers from intervening to rescue the attacked.’
In the first wave of protests that ousted them, HarassMap showed that the Mubarak regime and Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) were responsible for paying packs of men to sexually assault female protesters. In addition, Noora claims that ‘many of the attacks that took place in November 2012 and January 25 2013 were most certainly more or less organized (and carried out by people who had been paid).’ In the recent cases, however, identifying both the perpetrators and those paying them has been difficult.

Turning a blind eye

Activists protesting against sexual harassment. Credit: Photo by Hossam el-Hamalawy/flickr

Crucially, the majority of attackers seem to be bystanders who decide to join the assault of the victim: these men are ‘unorganised’ opportunists. The assault often begins with a small group isolating the victim and circling her. Once the assault begins, passers-by typically participate in the increasingly brutal attacks.
For many activists like Noora, this is the key issue. ‘Whether or not these attacks are organized and/or pre-planned/paid for, it is important to acknowledge that the magnitude and viciousness of the attacks would not exist on this scale if it weren’t for the hundreds, sometimes thousands, of bystanders who choose to join the attack rather than to try to stop it.’
Mainstream attitudes and cultural practises have made Egypt a dangerous place to be a woman. Chronic inattention to women’s rights issues combined with victim blaming and a culture of denial means that men (62% of whom admitted to harassing women in a 2008 survey by the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights) can attack women with impunity. ‘Assaults have become tolerated, accepted, and expected, and instead of intervening to stop them, people often make excuses for attackers and blame women themselves for being attacked. Some people even deny that mob assaults or sexual harassment happen at all’, reports Noora.

Taking back the streets

If the ambition of those engaging in the organised sexual assault was to terrify women out of participating in public demonstrations, the feeling on the ground is that they were unsuccessful. Noora reports that ‘many women who themselves have been assaulted also choose to either go out and protest again, or join OpAntiSH or Tahrir Bodyguard as volunteers.’
Further action needs to be taken both on the ground and from above in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1325 in order to make sexual harassment, politically motivated or not, disappear from Cairo streets.

/by Sawsan Bastawy