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Sunday, September 18, 2011

Added succour for victims of trafficking

thepeninsulaqatar.com

Sunday, 18 September 2011 03:09

By FAZEENA SALEEM
DOHA: Qatar wants justice to be done to housemaids who have been victims of human trafficking and were forced to flee from their sponsors because of abuse.
The country’s anti-human trafficking agency has plans to raise awareness among the staff of embassies of major manpower exporting countries here so that they can identify runaway maids from their countries approaching them for help and give shelter to victims of trafficking and abuse.
The agency, Qatar Foundation for Combating Human Trafficking (QFCHT), in fact, hopes to soon launch a ‘training programme’ for embassy staff responsible for the welfare of workforce from their respective countries.
The programme is actually designed to educate the embassy staff to identify victims of human trafficking as they (embassy staff) are founding wanting in knowledge in this area and hence, tend to treat all runaway cases in the same manner.
“We will ask embassy staff to come here and learn about what human trafficking is and the procedures they should follow to identify a victim,” Heidi Winder, Project Specialist, QFCHT, told The Peninsula in an interview.
“We have good relations with all embassies and encourage them to refer victims of human trafficking and abuse to our foundation,” she said.
The agency has plans to print pamphlets explaining what human trafficking is and how to help a victim, and these will be distributed to different embassies and manpower agencies as well as circulated at the airport.
Importantly, the QFCHT has launched a pilot project in cooperation with the Embassy of the Philippines to identify and help runaway maids who are victims of human trafficking and abuse since Filipina maids are found in large numbers here.
Making a maid overwork, not paying salaries on time and subjecting them to physical or verbal abuse are quite common here and they are forms of human rights abuse. Such cases can be referred to the QFCHT.
The QFCHT helps victims of human trafficking to seek legal protection, provide them with lodging facilities and psychological counselling, the official said. “Our centre can house 14 to 15 females in the lodging house at a time.”
“We give the victims an option. They can go home or can file a case. However, we usually advise them to file a case. We offer them psychological counselling and supportive trauma relief,” said Winder. Talking of runaway maids, she said the problem is that the victims among them rather than being protected are treated as criminals. “We want to make sure that they are treated as victims and not criminals,” said Winder. The QFCHT also provides inmates with training depending on their choice. They can learn cooking, handwork and stitching. Some are employed at the organisation through which they earn an income.
However, many housemaids prefer to go back to their home countries as legal procedures can take long time.
“Many runaway housemaids want to go home, they don’t want to open a case that can be dragged,” said Winder.
In this type of cases the QFCHT help the victims to get the exit permit and go home. The organisation’s lawyers specialised in Human Rights negotiate with sponsors through the CID to help the victim to get the exit permit and the pending salary to travel back to the home country.
“It takes a long time and it’s very difficult. And unfortunately they don’t get identified as a victim as well as there is no documentation,” said Winder.
She also said that many people are now seeking advice and protection from the QFCHT due to the awareness being created within the community through different channels and the lodging facilities will be soon expanded for nearly 36 people. The new lodging facility will also accommodate male victims of human trafficking as now they are being assisted by the QFCHT only to seek legal advice.
“Generally men come here for their cases to be heard,” said Winder. Also the QFCHT taken considerable steps to educate and protect the labourers and other male workers from human trafficking, especially through its office at the health centre in the industrial area.   The Peninsula

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