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Sri Lankan Domestic Workers Suffer Abusive Situations
Friday, December 14, 2007 4:12 PM
Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently released a report “Exported and Exposed: Abuses against Sri Lankan Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates” that documents human rights violations that Sri Lankan women are facing as domestic workers in the Mideast. HRW interviewed 100 Sri Lankan women about their experiences in the area as domestic workers, a situation that affects 125,000 women annually. In fact, remittances contribute more than nine percent to the gross domestic product. Gender-based violence and economic inequality prompt Sri Lankan women to seek opportunity elsewhere. Women reported facing heavy debt burdens paid to recruitment agents, being coerced or forced to take contraceptives, unpaid wages, and other situations of labor and sexual trafficking. Women also reported physical and sexual abuse, including sexual harassment and assault. Major recommendations were improving labor laws and domestic criminal laws and holding recruitment agencies more accountable. Compiled from: Turner, Jennifer, “Exported and Exposed: Abuses against Sri Lankan Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates,” Human Rights Watch, November 2007.
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