Migrants Flock to the Middle East with Meagre Preparations

As making a living and supporting one’s self and family becomes more and more challenging in Ethiopia, women go to great measures seeking employment abroad.  Without any knowledge  of the country, women, fearing the alternative, are confident and eager to be domestic workers in  places like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, writes EDEN SAHLE, FORTUNE STAFF WRITER.
Outside the compound of the Ministry of Labour & Social Affairs,  peoplde hope and wait to get their employment approve.  Medina Yalelet, in her late teens, came all the way from Lalibela town, 642Km away from  Addis Abeba in the Amhara Regional State, six months ago planning to go to Saudi Arabia  to work as a domestic worker. Although she has no formal education, she has heard that the pay is good and she is  confident that she will be able to manage the communication gap and work there.  However, despite her confidence, she only knows three words of Arabic. She heard about the employment opportunity and the lucrative pay two years ago from an agent of one of the agencies involved in sending migrant workers to the Middle East.  At the time, she was working as a daily labourer earning 15 Br a day. The income  supported her family, parents, two younger brothers and a sister, in addition to the  income they get farming on the half a hectare of land they own. However, Medina says she did not hesitate to make up her mind when she heard that she could get 180 dollars a month, which the Ministry of Labour & Social Affairs  (MoLSA) has set as the minimum wage recruitment agencies have to offer domestic  workers travelling abroad. This is not the only requirement that the 135 recruitment agencies registered with  the Ministry have to fulfil to be able to facilitate and send workers to the Middle East.  Due to the complaints of abuse of domestic workers who have gone to these  countries, the Ministry has put forth a set of stringent rules on them. Agencies which plan to recruit 500 people have to deposit 30,000 dollars with the  Ministry while those planning to recruit 1,000 people have to deposit 50,000 dollars.  This money is to be used to bring back employees who are injured or have died  while abroad, according to the employment exchange service proclamation of 2009.  This is to make the agencies accountable to whatever harm and complaints that  come to the employees, states the proclamation. Indeed, a few years back, there were a lot of women coming back from these  countries with stories of physical abuse and denial of pay for the services they had provided. Despite the horror stories that have been published in many newspapers and talked about  around town, the number of women looking to work abroad does not seem to be decreasing. One simply needs to go to the Labour Ministry to see the amount of people looking for  employment in Middle Eastern countries, standing in long queues, waiting to get their  employment approved. There were 15,323 Ethiopians employed abroad in the period between July 8, 2009 and July 8, 2010, a majority of whom, 86.9pc, were female, according to the Labour  Market Information (LMI) bulleting for 2009/10 published by the Ministry. According to the bulletin, these employees originated largely from Addis Abeba, 49pc, while those from  Oromia and Amhara Regional States followed with 19.6 and 14.6pc, respectively. Medina only speaks three words of Arabic and plans to move Saudi Arabia as a domestic worker. The bulletin identified Kuwait as the most popular employment destination with 72pc of  the total going there. Out of this 72pc, only 435 were male. The second major destination  was Saudi Arabia with 23pc. This data also shows that 90pc of those who were placed abroad were mainly employed in domestic work, which is what the majority of the people you see queued up at the Ministry are hoping for. In the process of her application, Medina was shown an orientation video illustrating what to expect in the work place and environment. The video shows types of appliances used in the kitchen and home as well as how to  operate them. It also includes what types of food they are expected to prepare. Despite never having used the appliances or the foods shown in the video, Medina was not worried,  saying she will learn quickly. “I am really impressed with the country,” Medina, who could not contain her excitement,  told Fortune. “I can learn the language quickly.” However, getting used to the language is not as easy as one expects, according to  Frehiwot Asseged, who has worked in Saudi Arabia as a domestic worker. “It did not take me that long to learn the recipes of the foods there and the operation  of the equipments,” she told Fortune. “But the language took me more than a year to learn.” However, many of the would-be employees who had watched the orientation video along  with Medina did not hide the fact that they barely understood the explanation on the  equipments they were expected to operate. They seemed at a loss about how to get  about getting information on the application process and so forth within the compound of the Ministry, let alone grasp what life abroad would be like. They lounged outside the offices during lunch hours, talking among themselves while  waiting. Announcements were heard, telling people to be careful with their belongings  and be careful of people trying to take advantage of them. Cluelessness and ignorance was not the only thing these individuals had in common, they could barely contain their excitement and eagerness to get there. For Medina this is a dream that has been in the making for two years since she heard about the opportunity. She had saved close to 1,526 Br in that time. When Fortune talked to her  two weeks ago, Medina has been in Addis for six months processing paperwork for her  departure. Expenses for air tickets, insurance, visa application, residence and work permits are to be  paid by employers, while the placement agencies are expected to cover the cost of health checkups and passport issuances, according to the Ministry. However, Medina says  she had to pay 605 Br to procure an insurance policy and 350 Br to get her passport. During the time it took her to process her passport, Medina, like many others with nowhere  to stay in Addis, spent her nights around Sidest Kilo paying two Birr a night, eating one meal  a day. Nonetheless, despite spending as little money as possible, the money Medina brought  with her from Lalibella was not enough to last her the six months she stayed in Addis  processing her application. “I do odd jobs that do not take up most of my day to make some money,” she told Fortune. “I bake injera for people or wash clothes.” This is a sacrifice Medina says she is willing to make to get to Saudi Arabia and earn a decent  wage to help herself and her family. “It is a better salary than I would get as a full time domestic worker in Addis,” Medina told  Fortune. Aynalem Daniel, a working mother of three is none too close to this reality having lost five  maids, who left their jobs pursuing the same dream as Medina, during a three month period. She was in Megenagna on October 12, 2011, dealing with a broker to hire a new maid. “It has become very difficult to find or retain a maid these days,” Aynalem, who was  paying a broker 20pc of the 500 Br monthly wages she had negotiated, she told Fortune.  “It has become so expensive to have a maid.” The desire to go abroad as a domestic worker seems to be so high that women would do  anything to get there. Many change their name to one sounding similar to those in the  countries they want to go to and lie about their age. This is true for Medina as well. “This is not the name my parents gave me,” she told Fortune. Along with changing her name when she was applying for her passport, she also filled in  her age as 24. For her, anything goes to make it to Saudi Arabia, without pausing to consider  what difficulties she may face once she gets there. Nevertheless, the Ministry holds placement agencies responsible for those things. They  are required to submit reports to the Ministry every three months on the status of the  employees they place until the contract is over, according to Basazen Derbe, senior expert in the public relations and communication directorate of the Ministry. Looking at the number of women who visit the Ministry on a daily basis, it is easy to see that business is lucrative for the agencies. They charge 500 dollars from employers looking  for domestic workers, according to an employee of one of the agencies who requested  anonymity. Their business is bound to increase in light of the recent ban by Saudi Arabia on migrant  domestic workers from the Philippines and Indonesia. In a move to fill the gap that has  been left, Saudi Arabia has turned to Ethiopia as its source of domestic workers. It hosts  around 1.5 million migrant workers, according to a Human Rights Watch report published last  year. After having spent half a year trying to secure the job in Saudi Arabia, Medina has passed her last hurdle and will soon be joining the 1.5 million migrant workers in Saudi Arabia. On  Thursday, October 20, 2011, she told Fortune over the phone that all her processing has been completed.  Medina, after having dreamed of this for two and a half years, now looks forward to her  departure to Saudi Arabia, a country she has only been exposed to for about an hour  through video footage and a language she doesn’t speak, in 20 days.   By EDEN SAHLE, FORTUNE STAFF WRITER