A new public service campaign aimed at better treatment for domestic workers such as maids and drivers began airing throughout the Arab world on MBC last week. The campaign also includes provocative print ads, which are running in several newspapers in Saudi Arabia.
A campaign focusing on the abuse of domestic workers has been launched on television, imploring employers to show compassion to their staff.
MBC, the Saudi-owned satellite station based in Dubai, is bearing the cost of three adverts being broadcast to the Middle East and North Africa.
In one of the adverts, an employer unleashes a torrent of abuse at his driver and maid over a request for unpaid wages.
“You should thank God it’s only two months,” screams the angry head of the household. The scene is followed by the message: “He who has no mercy will not receive mercy”.
The adverts were created by Full Stop Advertising, a Saudi company that has also produced a print campaign to appear in several Saudi newspapers. One of the print adverts shows a maid on her hands and knees before a dog food bowl, while another depicts her wearing a dog collar and leash.
Kaswara al Khatib, the company founder, said domestic abuse of foreign workers in Arab countries was an issue that needed to be addressed. The message in the advertisement, a quote from the Prophet Mohammed, was used in reproach “to remind people that this is what Islam is all about”.
“Eventually someone has to speak up and raise their voice. These people need someone to stand up for them.”
The three adverts started last week. They cost about US$100,000 (Dh367,340) to produce and were financed by a non-profit subsidiary of the Saudi Binladin Group.
“It’s a noble cause, certainly,” said Mazen Hayek, MBC Group’s director of marketing. “As a consumer, when I watch it, it calls for good treatment of housemaids... it’s basic human rights.”
The commercials were originally due to start during Ramadan but were postponed so as to not dilute their message. They are expected to continue showing for two to three months.
In another of the adverts, a happy gathering of women is interrupted as the hostess screams at her Filipina maid to “get out of my sight”. In the third one, viewers see the maid on her hands and knees scrubbing a kitchen floor. The woman of the house yells at her “not to sleep until the house is spotless”. The maid slumps and looks at the floor, continuing to move her brush back and forth.
“Situations like this I have seen around me,” said Mr Khatib. “I might have exaggerated a little bit, but that’s what is happening.”
MD Moniruzzaman a labour counsellor at the Bangladesh Embassy in Abu Dhabi, said he hoped the campaign would hit home for some Emiratis.
“Of course it’s a good idea,” he said. “They will understand better if they see it on television.”
Mr Moniruzzaman said his office had received as many as 80 complaints a year of domestic abuse – and those were only the cases the embassy knew about. The latest, this month, involved a maid who reported being beaten with kitchen utensils by her female employer. The office changed the maid’s sponsorship and she was reassigned to work in a different home.
“It’s one of the biggest problems. These people’s behaviour is very injurious and alarming. It’s not everyone, but people who do, it is dangerous.”
Human Rights Watch has received consistent reports of mistreatment during the process of recruiting domestic workers, with agencies charging exorbitant fees, confiscating passports and changing destinations with little or no notice, said Nisha Varia, acting deputy director of the women’s rights division.
Physical and emotional abuse also happen, she said, but by far the most common complaints the organisation has found were about unpaid wages or confinement in the workplace.
“These are adult women and they’re treated like children,” she said.
That the adverts are allowed at all in the UAE indicates the Government is acknowledging the issue, Ms Varia said.
“It’s a movement forward when a government admits that the way to respond to a problem is not to deny it, but to address it.”
In September the Government submitted its first assessment of the UAE’s human rights record to the UN as part of the Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review. The report addressed the issue of domestic workers, including the adoption last year of mandatory work contracts requiring proper health care and rest periods. The UAE is to appear before the council for the first time next month.
