Nightmare in Dreamland pt3 DUBAI Ethiopian / Filipino Maids Slavery

From: www.cultureunplugged.com/play/4716/Nightmare-in-Dreamland

Synopsis: Because prospects of a livelihood at home are more or less non-existent, thousands of young African women go to the wealthy Persian Gulf states every year to work as domestic servants. For many Ethiopian girls, employment as a housemaid in Dubai is their only hope of paid work. They earn one hundred dollars a month for a 24/7 job in the household of an Arab family.
Back home, this kind of money would be beyond their wildest dreams.
But once they arrive in the "dreamland" of Dubai, the dream rapidly turns into a nightmare.
From then on, life turns into a struggle for sheer survival. They are the slaves of the 21st century, trapped in a dilemma from which there is no way out. Resistance can easily have fatal consequences. Many African housemaids are so desperate that they end up committing suicide. Very few of them manage to escape. If they do get away, they end up wandering aimlessly through the streets of Dubai with nowhere to go. NGOs operating under cover do their best to offer these fugitive housemaids a roof over their heads and to keep them from being imprisoned for vagrancy. Frequently, the female volunteers working for these aid organizations, many of them as the wives of wealthy emirs cannot even tell their own husbands about their voluntary work. For these men, treating their employees as if they were slaves is the most natural thing in the world. Years later, the young Ethiopian girls return to their native villages in a pitiable state. They are traumatized and most of them are physically ill besides. They spend most of their savings on paying their medical bills. As they vegetate in their tiny wooden huts, they tell of the multiple physical and mental cruelties perpetrated on them, the constant reminders that they were cheap commodities that could be replaced at any time. But despite the horrors awaiting them at their workplaces, the majority of these girls want to return to the United Arab Emirates. The reason is the feeling of responsibility they have for their families.
The film describes the fates of young Ethiopian girls before and after their work spells in Dubai. It shows how human traffickers recruit their victims and spirit them away to their foreign destinations, and it accompanies these young women on their progress from the crippling poverty at home to the affluence of the Gulf states. Its central subjects are their dream of a better life, the hopeless dilemma in which these young women are caught up, and the perpetual violation of human rights. In addition, the documentary casts light on everyday life in the dazzling glitter and glamour of Dubai and reveals the two-faced brutality and the socially accepted abuse of power on which much of its domestic life is based.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• slavery
• ethiopia
• philippines
• dubai
• tourism
• uae
• united
• arab
• emirates
• maids
• domestic
• workers
• human
• rights
• trafficing

[TheEwooz]

this problem can stop in a months, if the ethiopian goverments insistst it stops.

[wyrda222]

@TheEwooz ask them about it: Ethiopia Consulate General , United Arab Emirates Bur Dubai, Al Mankhool St, Sharaf Bldg Flat # 222/2, 6th floor. P.O. Box: 115353 Dubai United Arab Emirates Phone: +971-4-3516868 +971-4-3513550 Fax: +971-4-3516328 Email: ethcodu@ethcongen.ae Website URL:

[Leonce62]

Islam forbids all forms of exploitation but arab people dont care, its has nothin to do with belief.

[wyrda222]

@Leonce62 well, Christianity never stopped Christians being bastards either, so yes it has nothing to do with belief whatsoever you are spot on.

[Leonce62]

@wyrda222 use ure knowledge and dont be a fool, we know that belief is also mentality. It is a human made based belief and it has done nothing for the whole world or the humanity. People dont follow the rules which they knew it´s not a good thing. So wake up.

[wyrda222]

@Leonce62 ?

[marlowbarley]

@Leonce62 lol... that doesnt make as much sense as you probably think it does. English obviously isn't your first language, so I have to at least applaud you for being bi-lingual.

[wyrda222]

@polygamous1 pt2: Same with newspapers, you could say its their own fault but most people don't see much past celeb gossip, footy and crime/immigration. Or am I being harsh?! Combine that with all the distractions of modern culture, poor education and you end up with a powerful sedative which, unlike doing it the strict way (like 'communist' countries), ends up with a similar effect of mass ignorance.

[wyrda222]

@polygamous1 that's about the size of it. I think you hold too much faith in BBC though. Our media has freedom to cover most things, but BBC is still biased toward certain things (Israel being one), and it chooses when to put on better reports when less people are watching. Maybe they're catering to how dumb they think we are, or how careless we are? Maybe they're right!?

[polygamous1]

what a terrible hypocritical world we live in first powerful countries rape all wealth from weak countries destroying their economies installing "friendly dictators" n protecting them dictators calling them moderates n creating such poverty many are forced to work under conditions like this other than the BBC n channel 4 that occationally report things like this No one else does

[wtf666911]

all agent should be closed .