For over half a century, the Middle East has been major migration corridor for domestic workers from Asia and Africa. This book Illuminates the multidimensionality of these workers' lives as they engage in finding a balance between acting and being acted upon, struggle and accommodation, and movement and stasis.

Millions of women from poor countries migrate to the Middle East to undertake domestic work in order to support their families at home. This book examines the slavery-like conditions of these female migrant domestic workers, with specific reference to the Kafala system of sponsorship. Using Lebanon as a case study, the author sheds light on how human rights and labour rights abuses are perpetuated, despite attempts by activists in these countries to introduce attitudinal, cultural and legislative reform. He highlights the structural as well as cultural dimensions that make migrant domestic workers vulnerable to abuse, and looks at the need for reforms to democratize the system with fundamental rights for migrant workers. The analysis covers a number of dimensions, including all forms of abuse, restriction of freedom and economic exploitation, and explores the psychodynamics of the migrant domestic worker as a stranger in the household. A timely contribution to the study of migrant workers, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of sociology, anthropology, globalization, gender studies, labour rights, international labour and migration studies.

Asian Migrant Workers in the Arab Gulf States (edited by Masako Ishii, et al.) examines how nationals and migrants construct new relationships in the segregated socioeconomic spaces of the region

"Millions of Asian and African women migrate to work as domestic workers in the Middle East and Asia. Migrant domestic workers perform services essential for many households to function and their earnings constitute a significant proportion of the billions of dollars in remittances sent to their home countries each year. Yet most host governments systematically deny them key labor protections accorded other workers and implement immigration policies that impede workers' ability to escape abusive conditions. While many migrant domestic workers report decent working conditions, Human Rights Watch research over the past six years has shown that they risk a range of abuses. Common complaints include unpaid wages, excessive working hours with no time for rest, and heavy debt burdens from exorbitant recruitment fees. Isolation in private homes and forced confinement in the workplace contribute to psychological, physical and sexual violence, forced labor, and trafficking. Slow Reform surveys progress in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Lebanon, Jordan, Singapore, and Malaysia in extending protection to domestic workers under labor laws, reforming immigration 'sponsorship' systems that contribute to abuse, ensuring effective response by police and courts to physical and sexual violence, and allowing civil society and trade unions to organize. The report highlights best government responses and continuing protection gaps and makes detailed recommendations to ensure respect for migrant domestic workers' rights."--Page 4 of cover.

At least 146,000 female migrant workers - perhaps many more - are employed in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Female domestic workers from the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Ethiopia, and elsewhere face severe abuse and exploitation by employers and labor recruitment agencies. "I Already Bought You" : Abuse and Exploitation of Female Migrant Domestic Workers in the United Arab Emirates documents how the UAE's visa sponsorship system (known as kafala) ties migrant workers to employers and how the exclusion of domestic workers from labor law protections leaves migrant domestic workers at risk of abuse. The report exposes barriers preventing abused domestic workers from obtaining remedy, including lack of shelters, penalties for "absconding" workers, and justice system failings. Based on interviews with 99 female domestic workers, recruitment agets, employers, and others in the UAE, the report documents abuses that domestic workers face - passport confiscation, non-payment of wages, lack of rest periods and time off, confinement to households, excessive work and working hours, food deprivation, and psychological, physical, and sexual abuse. In some cases the abuses amounted to forced labor or trafficking. The UAE has an increasingly influential role in the international labor arena. In 2014, it joined the governing body of the International Labor Organization. At home, however, it maintains the exploitative kafala system, has failed to adopt a bill pending since 2012 on domestic workers' rights, and has yet to ratify key international treaties on migrants' and domestic workers' rights. Human Rights Watch calls for the reform of the kafala system and the introduction of labor law protections and other measures to fully protect domestic workers' rights. -- back cover.

This book tells the stories of the Ethiopian women who migrate to work as domestic workers in the Middle East. Drawing on qualitative research in Ethiopia, Lebanon and Kuwait, the author reveals how women’s aspirations to migrate are constituted within unequal gendered structures of opportunity in Ethiopia and asks us to consider how gender, race, class and nationality intersect in the construction of migrant subjectivities and agency. By analysing the impact of migration on social reproduction both in Ethiopia and the destination countries, the book offers fresh empirical and theoretical insights into the largest stream of women’s autonomous international migration from Africa.

Key recommendations to governments of labor-receiving countries -- Background -- Labor reforms -- Immigration policies -- Criminal justice system -- Labor and civil society organizing -- Conclusion.