“As If I Am Not Human” - Human Rights Watch

pay. My husband wanted me to come to Saudi Arabia. He said, ‘If you can earn
enough money, we can get the house back.’ I had to come to pay the debt, there was
no [other] choice.” 24 Adelina Y. started crying when she told Human Rights Watch, “I
am a single mother and I want my kids to go to school and to help my family. I came
here [to Saudi Arabia] because I want money, but it wasn’t good for me.” 25 Hemanthi
J.’s husband forced her to migrate. She said, “I didn’t want to come to Saudi, but my
husband forced me to come…. He said, ‘Go abroad and earn money so we can get
our own house.’” 26
In some cases, even highly educated women were unable to earn enough money in
their home country and resorted to domestic work abroad to pay their bills. Marilou
R., a Filipina domestic worker whose Saudi employer later failed to pay her wages
said, “I have a BS [Bachelors degree in Science] in Agriculture, in Crop Science. I was
a technician in Mindanao. Yes I enjoyed it so much, I earned 5,000 pesos [$107]. [I
migrated because] I have a nephew who had heart failure. Every month we need
10,000 pesos [$214] for his heart medicine.” 27
Many women encounter returned migrants who have been successful in earning
money overseas, and compare their earning capacity at home to potential income
abroad. In one such case, Krishnan S. said, “I think working abroad is better [than
working on a tea estate] because in two months I can earn 20,000 rupees [$179], but
if I work on an estate, they deduct for this and that, and I will get 2,000 or 3,000
rupees [$18-27].” 28
Women make the decision to migrate not once, but many times. Confronted with
relentless financial pressures, most migrants and their families found it difficult to
save, and after finishing a two-year contract, women faced the same expenses that
led them to migrate initially. Human Rights Watch interviewed women who had
migrated as many as 14 times as a domestic worker. Krishnan S., mentioned above,
24 Human Rights Watch interview with Farzana M., Sri Lankan domestic worker, Riyadh, December 15, 2006.
25 Human Rights Watch interview with Adelina Y., Filipina domestic worker, Jeddah, December 9, 2006.
26 Human Rights Watch interview with Hemanthi J., Sri Lankan domestic worker, Riyadh, December 14, 2006.
27 Human Rights Watch interview with Marilou R., Filipina domestic worker, Jeddah, December 10, 2006.
28 Human Rights Watch interview with Krishnan S., Sri Lankan domestic worker, Maskeliya, Sri Lanka, November 13, 2006.
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Human Rights Watch July 2008