Enough is enough

An ad-hoc rights advocacy group comprised of concerned activists from Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and other Southeast Asian nations, recently finalized with the U.A.E. government, a framework agreement for the protection of domestic workers from their countries, employed in the Gulf Emirate. The agreement ensures that hundreds of thousands of their citizens, nearly all female, will have recourse to law and are hereafter entitled to consular representation in U.A.E. courts.
On the other hand, Ethiopian domestic workers abroad, mainly in Arab nations, do not even have the prospect of a dignified death, much less the consular services of a caring and indignant home country or a group of concerned citizens to lobby on their behalf.
To the super wealthy Gulf States we must signal our collective displeasure at the way our mothers, sisters and daughters are being treated. We say to them: the absolute measure of genuine progress is the respect for humanity and not in tall buildings or designer islands. The sad fate of the young woman whose remains were kept for months before she was stripped of her vital organs, stuffed with cotton and ignomiously shipped home to her distraught relatives has shocked country. This surely must be the last straw. It is intolerable and must not be allowed to stand. The persecution of even a single Ethiopian, in any country is no less than an affront on the dignity of Ethiopia itself and our nation should seek urgent answers and legal redress to the multiple and now systemic abuse.
How are our representatives in the U.A.E. doing about this? In fact, we would like to know what items could so occupy the time of an Ethiopian diplomat accredited abroad in those countries in which our sisters suffer so miserably?
Ethiopia may be underdeveloped but it has a finely tuned sense of right and wrong. Among the autonomous agencies of the United Nations is the International Labor Organization (ILO) of which Ethiopia is a member in good standing. ILO objectives include the improvement of labor conditions, providing social security and the promotion of decent labor practices globally. It is high time our nation entered a formal appeal to the ILO on behalf of thousands of abused compatriots languishing in terrible employment conditions in the Middle East.
Civil Society Organizations (CSO) must join hands to mobilize, galvanize and pressure government and the collective public about this persecution of our citizens. Ethiopians are also obliged to sensitize one another to the horrible reality faced by Ethiopian womanhood in strange and culturally dissimilar lands. We appeal to specialized organizations such as the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA) and the Ethiopian Media Women’s Association (EMWA) to apply their proven legal and media expertise to the cause, so that our sisters may have the same labor rights enjoyed by domestic workers from Asian nations. The matter also directly concerns the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and the Ministry of Justice, in their respective mandated capacities to act promptly and decisively.
At the core of the problem remains the proliferation of hundreds of ‘foreign employment agencies.’ Many are little more than nodes for human trafficking as tens of thousands of desperately poor women and now men are scurried away yearly in dubious ways with little or minimal legal process or protection.
Labor migration is a fact of life and will continue as a normal part of human interaction. The personal growth gained from overseas jobs and in terms of benefits to compatriots and the nation, can not be dismissed. Remittances from foreign based workers provide a steady flow of several billions annually to economies such as the Philippines. Ethiopian abroad cumulatively send substanial suns to their families. We can not condemn a perfectly reasonable source of national income. However, we do condemn the recruitment system and the absence of protective legal structures. Our young women are being made to feel that they are stateless and without a vanguard society behind them. Let’s re-affirm their faith in their country by rising to the occasion. Enough is enough.