What are your experiences as Kasambahay travelling with your employers abroad?
While the risk of working as domestic worker in the Middle East is known to many, there are still Filipinos who would take the risk just to provide for the financial needs of their families back in the Philippines.
Many of these domestic workers are brought to the UK by their wealthy employers from the gulf states.
Some of these domestic workers are employed by rich Arabs from Saudi, Jordan, and other GCC countries. However, this does not exempt them from suffering abuse in the hands of their employers.
They get to stay in beautiful hotels, and apartments surrounded by ostentatious trappings of wealth, but behind these curtains they are left starving. One of them narrated she has to sleep on the floor and eat only biscuits. While another is only being paid £50 a week, and some don't even get paid. Some employers refer to them as "slaves", and some have to work as much as 20 hours a day.
In 2012 the visa system in the UK was changed, and these domestic workers are left tied to their employers. Even if they run away, they cannot work for other employers and they usually have to face deportation.
Adele, one of runaways said, "Its like we are criminals that the immigration keeps hunting".
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