3071-The political economy of new slavery

Bridget Anderson 113
lives are completely ignored. For migrant domestic workers in the UK,
who often accompany employers from the Middle East, the problem
is often cast as one of evil Arabs ‘importing’ slavery. Maltreatment and
abuse of workers was presented as a consequence of allowing people
with no understanding of what constituted civilized behaviour to bring
in their domestic servants. A frequent response to newspaper articles
or television coverage are phone calls from viewers offering board and
lodging in exchange for work, just to help the ‘poor girls’ out. These
highly exploitative offers of employment (in a nice family) as a favour
are made with kind intentions, for of course these readers/viewers are
not at all like the evil employers they read about or see on the television.
‘Don’t be dependent on them, be dependent on us!’ It is an active
demonstration of kindness; the worker is a living illustration of her
employer’s charity. They are not slave mistresses; they have managed to
transcend the exploitative relationships that are so exemplified in the
lives of undocumented migrant women in Europe.
What can be done?
So, recognizing that MDWs are not a homogeneous group and that some
MDWs suffer great hardship while others have managed to negotiate
reasonable working conditions, what can be done to ensure that MDWs
are not treated as slaves or victims?
1. Domestic work needs to be recognized as work!
All too often domestic work is despised as dirty work. Work which is
unskilled but necessary. It is not given the proper respect it deserves.
Employers often describe their MDW not as workers but as part of the
family, and not working but helping out. Many employers will expect the
MDW to be on-call, to baby-sit in the evening (even if this is their time
off), because this is not really working. Often employers calling Kalayaan
looking for a domestic worker ask how many hours the worker is supposed
to work every day and express surprise when we suggest a normal
eight-hour day, with two days off. I think this is because the families
who call us really do not see the worker as having a life outside of their
house and that as part of the family they should want to do the extra
tasks (just this once – clear up after the party, baby-sit tonight, do the
extra washing up and so on). This undermines domestic work and does
not treat the domestic worker as a worker.