Food abuse! Salma the domestic worker
October 2008
We have finally joint the 70,000 Jordanian families that have foreign live-in domestic workers. Irani, is 23, smart and ambitious. She started her studies in economics at the university, and is here to save enough money to be able to go back to school…. I picked her up when she arrived…
And for a split of a second, I imagined myself going into a new place… where I know nothing at all… I don’t speak the language, and where I am supposed to move in with some completely random family … lets say I can understand why she looked bewildered.
October 2009
Rani is still here; we managed to become friends during this last year. By now I know her life story. She still impresses me with her intellect, intelligence and her subtlety. I also know that her mother is here in Amman, she does not live far away from us… she is a cook at some wealthy household.
Today, Rani told me a very strange thing about her mother… she mentioned that even though she is the cook, her employers made her sign a very strict contract that stipulates she is not allowed to taste or eat any food at home. They give her 5 JDs every week to eat! FIVE JDs for the whole week! While these fat, ugly pathetic excuses of human beings spend extravagantly on their meals… Rani has mentioned several times before the kind of meals her mothers cooks, the luxury items her employers export from abroad…Salma spends her entire day cooking! Literally!
Does anyone knows how much cooking this is?!
Salma laughed embarrassed as she explained how she sometimes desires the food she cooks… but since there are 2 other maids there, one of them works as a spy… she actually can’t eat any food… so she has been feeding on Tuna cans, Endomy Noodles and other crap from the supermarket… she obviously does not want to spend her salary…. understandably, she travelled thousands of miles with her daughter in order to save enough money so that her 3 kids (including the daughter) can go to university and don’t have to clean people’s toilets for the rest of their lives!
I know it sounds horrible, but I found myself hoping this family will suffer from high cholesterol and high blood pressure, so that they start eating non-tasty food and desire things they can’t eat… maybe then, they can understand what they have been making this human being go through every single day last year.
Apparently Jordan is so known for our creative abuse methods when it comes to domestic help, that someone went ahead and wrote an article about it on Wikipedia…. Human trafficking in Jordan…
Yup this is how we want Jordan to be known on the world’s map! Fabulous, eh?
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Is that even legal?
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who knows
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Rani is blessed to have your family. Tell some of her other stories regularly.
If she ever has friends that are in trouble and need help, I know of several self-empowered Filippinas, Sri Lankans and Indonesians who help their sisters in their free time.
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madas Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 19:20
Ahh ya Kinzi! I wish it is like that… I wish she is blessed. I don’t want to lose my faith, but how could a young woman be blessed whn her job is clean after the mess my family creates?! find my family is not bad… i feel bad when i think about the hundreds of thousands f women who live in Jordan in this capacity and are treated so badly…as if it is not enough for them to clean people’s mess, they also have to suffer for it….
I will share her stories whenever she allows me
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While this story saddens me, I am immune to being shocked by the choices these families make to consciously abuse their domestic workers. My good friend who stayed with me for a summer once said her former employer (big rich Dr. who owns a well-known spa/salon here in Amman)allocated she and 5 other domestic workers 1 cup of rice per day (for all six of them) and chicken backs. They ate chicken backs and rice, EVERY DAY.
We have to keep being a voice for these innocent people.
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madas Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 19:25
I though i am immune… but i realize that i still am not
inhumanity still shocks me… actually i am not sure why i thought about a documentary i watched about Rwanda a few years ago. In the documentary a young boy of 12 or 13 was saying hw difficult it was to kill the first person and how easy it was to kill the second….! my point is… it is very easy for a person to lose their humanity… but whenever someone crosses that line, I still get surprised.
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I couldn’t help but notice the stress on the word “Human beng” in your post, I don’t know if you intended to make it this way or it just came out naturally out of frustration and moriificaton with these acts. Either way I think this isexactly what we need
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madas Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 19:25
some humanity? Akh ya Ola… you are right this is exactly what is needed.
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hmmm well actually i don’t believe everything that i hear from the workers. not because they are workers but because people in general love to victimize themselves and dramatize their world. JD5 a week? i don’t think so. and probably her salary is relatively high but khalas she doesn’t want to use it for food.
I know you, you’re too nice fa probably she thought she could get your sympathy o haik for ‘future plans’
well maybe she’s saying the truth but as always i refuse to believe that the world is cruel.
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madas Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 19:28
The world is cruel… it is unfortunately not as beautiful and colourful as it is in your lovely bubble
I agree that people like to victimize themselves… but I really think this person tells the truth… you have no idea how dignified these people are… they have so much dignity, it is embarrassing to do charity with them… I think she has no reason to lie to me, and actually these atories are very difficult to invent
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These kind of stories infuriate me. How can some Jordanians (and Arabs across the Middle East) have the nerve to mistreat a domestic worker, degrade them to sub human level and treat them like animals? These stories are all too common in the Middle East and you only have to read the newspapers to know that such stories are true and not an over-exaggerated story looking for pity.
The number of suicides of domestic workers who choose to end their life rather than spend another day being treated like garbage by their employer is staggering. It’s this sick desire for Arabs, with or without money, to be elitists and prove that they are better by having a domestic worker clean their garbage.
I’m not against hiring a domestic worker but if you do, you need to realize that they are guests in your home and deserve a equipped bedroom to stay in. Not sleep on the kitchen or salon floor on a thin mattress. They should have predetermined working hours, they are not on call 24/7. And they should be allowed to have a weekend off to taste freedom. It’s so sad that the majority don’t offer basic human rights. I’ve heard so many stories from so many sources that are just so shocking and terrifying!
As for this woman that gets 5jd a week to eat, it is not legal and her employers must be reported to the embassy. These animals do not deserve the luxury of having a domestic worker and should be blacklisted. Maybe picking up after themselves and cleaning their own $h*t will humble them a little.
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