DUBAI, United Arab Emirates—Gina de la Pena left the Philippines after receiving a seemingly lucrative job offer as a housemaid in the United Arab Emirates.
Once she arrived in the Gulf country however, she found that her salary had been halved and she had to work to pay off the airfare the recruitment agency paid to bring her from the Philippines.
“I could not do anything about it since I was already here,” she told the UAE daily newspaper the National.
“Besides, the agency paid for all recruitment costs, including my airline ticket. I was indebted to them.”
She is one of 130 runaway maids at the Filipino Workers Resource Centre in the capital Abu Dhabi—many of whom who have also been subject to a growing problem known as “contract substitution.”
The Philippines ambassador to the UAE, Grace Princesa, said last Friday that she would seek a meeting with UAE labor officials over the issue.
Many of the women had signed contracts for $400 per month, the minimum wage the Philippines’ government has set for overseas workers.
However, many of the substitute contracts the women were being forced to sign after entering employment were for $200.
“We don’t like that,” Princesa said in a meeting for the Filipino Human Resources Practitioners’ Association in the UAE capital last Friday.
“We’re selling ourselves short.”
Local media reported recently that in 2009, there were—from Indonesian domestic workers alone—some 2,599 complaints about unpaid salaries, unreasonable work hours, and physical and sexual harassment.
The figure represents an increase of 24 percent over the previous year.
In a report in April, Human Rights Watch warned that what progress there had been over rights for migrant domestic workers had been hard won, and was still falling short in several areas.
“Reforms often encounter stiff resistance both from employers used to having a domestic worker on call around the clock and labor brokers profiting handsomely off a poorly regulated system,” said Nisha Varia, women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.
“Governments should make protecting these vulnerable workers a priority.”
According to 2007 figures, there are 268,000 foreign domestic workers in the UAE. In the capital city, where there is a higher proportion of local families, there is a higher concentration of domestic workers—around 6 percent of the population.
Filipinos and Indonesians constitute 80 percent of foreign domestic workers in the country.
It is officials like Nasser Munder, the Philippine labor attaché at the embassy in Abu Dhabi who is working to empower these workers—many of whom report feeling helpless in the face of contract violations by recruitment companies.
“We encourage our workers not to sign a new contract,” Munder told the National. “I’ve always been asking the women here [at the shelter] why they had accepted a lower salary when they could have earned much more.”
Once she arrived in the Gulf country however, she found that her salary had been halved and she had to work to pay off the airfare the recruitment agency paid to bring her from the Philippines.
“I could not do anything about it since I was already here,” she told the UAE daily newspaper the National.
“Besides, the agency paid for all recruitment costs, including my airline ticket. I was indebted to them.”
She is one of 130 runaway maids at the Filipino Workers Resource Centre in the capital Abu Dhabi—many of whom who have also been subject to a growing problem known as “contract substitution.”
The Philippines ambassador to the UAE, Grace Princesa, said last Friday that she would seek a meeting with UAE labor officials over the issue.
Many of the women had signed contracts for $400 per month, the minimum wage the Philippines’ government has set for overseas workers.
However, many of the substitute contracts the women were being forced to sign after entering employment were for $200.
“We don’t like that,” Princesa said in a meeting for the Filipino Human Resources Practitioners’ Association in the UAE capital last Friday.
“We’re selling ourselves short.”
Local media reported recently that in 2009, there were—from Indonesian domestic workers alone—some 2,599 complaints about unpaid salaries, unreasonable work hours, and physical and sexual harassment.
The figure represents an increase of 24 percent over the previous year.
In a report in April, Human Rights Watch warned that what progress there had been over rights for migrant domestic workers had been hard won, and was still falling short in several areas.
“Reforms often encounter stiff resistance both from employers used to having a domestic worker on call around the clock and labor brokers profiting handsomely off a poorly regulated system,” said Nisha Varia, women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.
“Governments should make protecting these vulnerable workers a priority.”
According to 2007 figures, there are 268,000 foreign domestic workers in the UAE. In the capital city, where there is a higher proportion of local families, there is a higher concentration of domestic workers—around 6 percent of the population.
Filipinos and Indonesians constitute 80 percent of foreign domestic workers in the country.
It is officials like Nasser Munder, the Philippine labor attaché at the embassy in Abu Dhabi who is working to empower these workers—many of whom report feeling helpless in the face of contract violations by recruitment companies.
“We encourage our workers not to sign a new contract,” Munder told the National. “I’ve always been asking the women here [at the shelter] why they had accepted a lower salary when they could have earned much more.”
