AMMAN — As the world marks the International Day for
Domestic Workers today,
Tamkeen for Legal Aid and Human Rights called on
authorities to facilitate the transfer of domestic workers in
Jordan from one
employer to another without the “concession” of the former employer, as well as
finding effective mechanisms for complaint reporting, and taking their
grievances seriously.
اضافة اعلان
In a report marking the occasion, set for June 16 of every
year, Tamkeen also called for activating domestic workers’ right to resign from
their employment, within the constraints of the law.
The report indicated that 33,777 domestic workers were
registered in Jordan last year, including 10,402 Filipino nationals and 8,095
from Bangladesh. The report also cited some 30,000 informal domestic workers,
who have left their former employments due to various reasons, including unpaid
wages, ill treatment, long working hours, preventing them from communications
with family, or lack of privacy.
The rights organization also noted that some domestic
workers leave their employers for other reasons not related to violations, such
as inability or unwillingness to work.
While legislation regulating domestic labor in Jordan are
advanced on an Arab level, the report said, it did not stop employers and
recruitment agencies from exploiting domestic workers, which Tamkeen attributes
to “absence of serious enforcement, and the prevalence of a guardianship
system, despite it not being stipulated in the law.”
Tamkeen has received 346 complaints last month from domestic
workers in governorates, the report said, key among which is grievances regarding
the confiscation of identification documents, which accounted for 215 of the
complaints.
Meanwhile, 114 domestic workers reported physical abuse, 154
reported working hours longer than 16 hours a day, and 165 reported no days
off.
The report also says that the Tamkeen received 172
complaints of delay in payment or not paying wages at all, and 111 grievances
regarding overtime pay.
There were 54 reports of forced stay, in which domestic
workers are prevented from leaving their employer’s home, making the reporting
of violations all the much harder.
The report also cited some 39 workers prevented from
receiving healthcare, 88 reports of ill treatment by employers or members of
their family, and 69 regarding lack of sleeping accommodations, while the organization
received 53 reports of forced labor, 51 of being made to work in several
houses, 48 regarding absence of insufficiency of food, 37 of failure to issue
work permits or residencies, 35 preventions from communicating with family, and
16 of “malicious accusations”, such as accusing domestic workers of theft.
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