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I finished my highschool in Qatar, and a part of the program was an internship. Mine was at QFCHT, Qatar Foundation for Combating Human Trafficking. It was jus

I finished my highschool in Qatar, and a part of the program was an internship. Mine was at QFCHT, Qatar Foundation for Combating Human Trafficking. It was just a bunch of houses in which maids who don’t have things going well with their Sponsors stay in, waiting for a ticket back home. The QFCHT would just host them and negotiate the sponsor for sending them home. Like, a 2-floor 5-room or so house that has 10 maids living in it. Their passports are confiscated by their sponsors, who were often times irrational egoistic wretches who believe they’re superior (keep in mind that the sample at QFCHT was the set of maids with the worst sponsors, I’ve seen a lot of kind Qataris who were fair and respectable). I heard though that this sponsor system has changed a while ago, not sure how is it done now since I no longer live there, but hope it’s better. We once, at our home, needed help cleaning so we called one of those Maid agencies for a temporary cleaning. They sent us a Filipino maid. While she was cleaning, she came across my little library that I had been growing during my ECE bachelors. She looked at the books and asked me if I am studying electronics. Started talking about her graduation project back home. She had graduated from ECE too.. I saw that with Nepali workers too. Many of them were highly educated, qualified, individuals, but I don’t know what financial situation compelled them to come to Qatar to work as waiters, maids, and other jobs that are way below their qualifications. I tried to learn some phrases in their language to joke with them and cheer them up when I interact with them. It always felt odd being on the service-receiving side. A lot of them were resilient in keeping their smile and sanity in spite of the assholic treatment a specific class of customers. That class earned the “bakla” title.

lawgimenez 4y ago
There are a lot of factors but the ones I could think of right now are salary of engineering graduates here in Philippines are very low and culturally. Culturally in the sense that in provinces, some parents treat their kids as "investment". I paid your college tuition so when you graduate you should start paying back by buying us a house, car, phones, etc. So there's really that pressure to get a high paying job right away.
tejohnso 4y ago
> Their passports are confiscated by their sponsors How does this work? As an adult, if someone tries to take my passport I would refuse. If they snatched it out of my hands, I would take it back. If they somehow got the better of me and hid it or locked it up, I'd go to the police. I could see maybe an abusive situation where going to the police isn't an option because the victim is locked in the house. In that case I'd expect that when the perpetrators are caught they'd be charged with kidnapping for that. And then some other charge (theft?) for locking up the passport.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  10's of thousands of cases (trafficking cases, not legal cases) and a handful of convictions of 'sponsors' show that the likelihood of coming out on top in such cases is very small.
- Frost1x 4y ago
  Perhaps they have a family back home literally starving and it's a sacrifice at the time they think they're willing to take to feed their family and send money home. They're desperate and willing to let a lot of things happen you and I might not be. They're also in another country that's highly male power oriented, probably talking to a male head of a household, potentially to someone wealthy and even powerful. Meanwhile you may be significantly smaller, may be female (this isn't meant as an insult... just that you may have less muscular mass/strength), and are in a country where someone may claim you stole your passport from their possession and they may literally cut your hands off, where the authorities may even agree with this should you go to them. Or, at the very least, they may no longer sponsor you and you may go home to your starving family with few other options. Some may argue that means the option you had was better, I think it's an argument to promote modern slavery and exploitation. My situation and I suspect yours are not remotely the same to these folks. If someone snatched my passport, I'm a fairly good sized and a reasonably strong male to muscle myself in (I also have a concealed carry permit, so I have a weapon should I need it). I have several more explicit rights and resources at my disposal, I have a government that issued my passport that will look at it say it's clearly my passport. My stance in such a situation is significantly different, assuming it happened here in the US. Meanwhile you have examples like Britney Griner who had similar advantages to me, arguably even more given her fame, and even she was detained and at the mercy of the Russian government where we literally had folks like Tony Blinken bartering a hostage exchange for her return. I'm not sure that would be the case if I was detained in Russia on similar charges (then again I probably wouldn't have been targeted as readily, either). The power dynamics in these situations aren't so dry cut but I assure you, these maids have very little power and rights. I recently had a layover in Qatar and even I was a bit weary of that--I tend to like to have layovers in more progressive countries where I'm less likely to deal with some abusive government.

lawgimenez 4y ago

There are a lot of factors but the ones I could think of right now are salary of engineering graduates here in Philippines are very low and culturally. Culturally in the sense that in provinces, some parents treat their kids as "investment". I paid your college tuition so when you graduate you should start paying back by buying us a house, car, phones, etc. So there's really that pressure to get a high paying job right away.

tejohnso 4y ago

> Their passports are confiscated by their sponsors How does this work? As an adult, if someone tries to take my passport I would refuse. If they snatched it out of my hands, I would take it back. If they somehow got the better of me and hid it or locked it up, I'd go to the police. I could see maybe an abusive situation where going to the police isn't an option because the victim is locked in the house. In that case I'd expect that when the perpetrators are caught they'd be charged with kidnapping for that. And then some other charge (theft?) for locking up the passport.

jacquesm 4y ago
10's of thousands of cases (trafficking cases, not legal cases) and a handful of convictions of 'sponsors' show that the likelihood of coming out on top in such cases is very small.
Frost1x 4y ago
Perhaps they have a family back home literally starving and it's a sacrifice at the time they think they're willing to take to feed their family and send money home. They're desperate and willing to let a lot of things happen you and I might not be. They're also in another country that's highly male power oriented, probably talking to a male head of a household, potentially to someone wealthy and even powerful. Meanwhile you may be significantly smaller, may be female (this isn't meant as an insult... just that you may have less muscular mass/strength), and are in a country where someone may claim you stole your passport from their possession and they may literally cut your hands off, where the authorities may even agree with this should you go to them. Or, at the very least, they may no longer sponsor you and you may go home to your starving family with few other options. Some may argue that means the option you had was better, I think it's an argument to promote modern slavery and exploitation. My situation and I suspect yours are not remotely the same to these folks. If someone snatched my passport, I'm a fairly good sized and a reasonably strong male to muscle myself in (I also have a concealed carry permit, so I have a weapon should I need it). I have several more explicit rights and resources at my disposal, I have a government that issued my passport that will look at it say it's clearly my passport. My stance in such a situation is significantly different, assuming it happened here in the US. Meanwhile you have examples like Britney Griner who had similar advantages to me, arguably even more given her fame, and even she was detained and at the mercy of the Russian government where we literally had folks like Tony Blinken bartering a hostage exchange for her return. I'm not sure that would be the case if I was detained in Russia on similar charges (then again I probably wouldn't have been targeted as readily, either). The power dynamics in these situations aren't so dry cut but I assure you, these maids have very little power and rights. I recently had a layover in Qatar and even I was a bit weary of that--I tend to like to have layovers in more progressive countries where I'm less likely to deal with some abusive government.