? Years of a Slaves – I

No, this is neither a pick from the Oscar wining movie ‘12 Years of Slave’ nor from the reel but real. In 21^st century the slavery still exits. Twenty-one million human still treated as slaves on record and as reveled by Steve McQueen in his Oscar acceptance speech. However, of the record you peep at your neighbourhood and you can find it everywhere. A dream for better life ends up with lots of pain and humiliation. Torture, hunger, exploitation and sexual abuse are the part of parcel in the disguise.

In Arabian countries, maids and unskilled labours are treated as slaves. Almost all these people have to work for day and night to fulfill optimism. Their little dream forced them to travel the distance.

Incredibly increasing rate of maid abuse in the Arab countries has raised trepidations over the lack of strict laws. According to a survey conducted by the Saudi magazine, more than three million maids in the Gulf countries are living in awful conditions and more incidents of verbal and physical abuse are reported.

Migrant workers, however, are also important to the global economy, particularly in the developing world. Last year, migrant workers sent $316 billion home to developing countries is more than three times the amount the countries received in formal foreign aid.

1.    Nelfa Baltar, a Filipina maid, secured the conviction of her Egyptian employers in Abu Dhabi after she had been burned with cigarettes on her hands and face and with a lighted match below her eyes.

2.    A Sri Lankan housemaid fled to her embassy in Abu Dhabi after a local housewife had heated a knife on a gas cooker and burned her on the neck, body and arms for breaking a plate. She had been whipped by the husband of the family when she demanded to leave, punched in the chest by the wife for lapses in her work and fed scraps from the kitchen.

3.    An employer tortured her maid to death in an attempt to force her to become better at housework.  

4.    An Emirati woman abused the Ethiopian maid daily after she moved in during Ramadan in Abu Dhabi. She poured boiling water over the maid and tied her up with electrical wire,. The maid was found dead in her employer's bathroom.

5.    Sumiati BT Salan Mustapa used to work for a family in Medina. Mustapa was admitted to a private hospital in Medina injured from head to toe in an unconscious state. The private hospital was unable to treat her serious injuries and she was transferred to the King Fahd hospital. Mustapa’s body “was burned on many places, both legs were almost motionless, some parts of her skin on her head were removed and strong marks of old wounds were on her body including skin loss on lips and head, a fractured middle finger and a cut near an eye.” Mustapa also showed signs of malnutrition or excessive blood loss.

The people from the countries like in the gulf and other Arab world with their enormous easily access wealth and little respect of fellow human are always famous for ill treating their unskilled employs but they are not the only one. In my next blog I will carry out some more chilling incidents.

!!!Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity. - George Eliot!!!