Zimbabwe Maids lured to slavery in Arab Emirates
Maid in Dubai
Scores of Zimbabwean women employed as domestic workers in Oman are being subjected to deplorable living and working conditions that include constant beatings, overwork, underpayment and forced labour, an official investigation has concluded.
The Zimbabwean Embassy in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, has established that some local employment agents working in collusion with criminal syndicates in the Middle East country were luring Zimbabwean women to the Sultanate through false promises of well-paying jobs before trading them off into virtual slavery.
The embassy recently dispatched senior officials on a consular visit to Muscat, the capital of Oman, after being inundated with calls from several Zimbabwean women employed as domestic workers raising alarm about their working conditions.
Counsellor Onismo Chigejo led an official delegation from the embassy on a two-day fact-finding mission to Muscat on February 18 where the team learnt of the harrowing conditions Zimbabwean expatriate workers were living under.
It was established that most of the women had their passports confiscated on arrival and were being forced to see out their two-year employment contracts in spite of poor working conditions.
Some of the employers are reportedly demanding up to US$2 500 from the women in return for their freedom.
Most of the domestic workers were earning between US$60 to US$80 per month.
A report from Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to the UAE, Lovemore Mazemo, addressed to Foreign Affairs and International Trade secretary, Ambassador James Manzou, in possession of The Sunday Mail, outlines in detail the appalling conditions some of the domestic workers are living under.
It says several women had developed suicidal tendencies on account of the harsh living conditions.
Ambassador Mazemo proposed a Government ban on migration by Zimbabweans to Oman to work as maids.
–-Sunday Mail
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