Islam is the real positive change that you need to change for being a better person or a perfect human being, you can change yourself if you read QURAN, IF YOU DO THAT !! you will change this UMMAH, say I am not A Sunni or Shia, BUT I am just a MUSLIM. Be a walking QURAN among human-being AND GUIDE THEM TO THE RIGHT PATH.
They hear about the abuse
and know they will be working illegally, but young women still travel to
the Middle East to work as domestic workers. To help understand why,
photojournalist Jihad Abaza documented the lives of three migrant women
working for a family in Egypt.
Domestic workers are excluded from
Egypt’s labor law, which means they have no social, health or legal
protection. Rose, who is from Indonesia, has been working in Egypt for
four years and has not seen her family at all during that time.Jihad Abaza
CAIRO–
Linda* has missed two of her sisters’ weddings. She has not seen her
nephews grow up. When she speaks to her father on a video call, she
notices that he is aging, and she hopes he doesn’t die before she can
see him again. She has been away from him and the rest of her family for
six years, ever since she left the Philippines to work as a nanny
in Egypt.
The day she left, Linda, who comes from an underprivileged family in
the Philippine province of Nueva Ecija, told her parents she was just
going to the capital, Manila, in search of a job – she didn’t want them
to worry or try to talk her out of her decision. She boarded a plane on a
journey that took her to Hong Kong, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates
and, finally, Egypt, where a family was waiting to hire her as one of
their domestic workers.
Linda
helps the family’s children with their studying. She and the other
women who work in the house have a nuanced relationship with the kids
whom they take orders from, but also have to raise. “If the kids do
something wrong or disrespectful, I am held responsible,” Linda says.
(Jihad Abaza)
Linda found out about the job from a friend of hers who had married
an Egyptian man with a recruitment agency. She was told that domestic
workers from the Philippines and Indonesia were more highly valued in
Egypt than those from other countries. Members of the Facebook group Maids and Nannies in Egypt
say Asian domestic workers usually get a monthly wage of around
5,000-6,000 Egyptian pounds ($650-$350), 2,000 Egyptian pounds more than
domestic workers from Africa.
“I
do not feel free,” Linda says. “I want privacy. … When I am with the
family, I have to behave in a certain way. I can’t laugh too loud or
speak too much.” (Jihad Abaza)
Recent cases of nannies and maids being mistreated,assaulted and even killed
by their employers in the Middle East have shone a light on the often
hidden and unregulated world of domestic workers. But the promise of a
decent wage continues to draw young women from Asia and Africa to work
in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt. In many cases, the
women are working illegally, which means they have little protection if
they are abused by their employers.
From
left: Rose, Linda and Maria cook dessert together for the family. Linda
says one of the few things that makes the job more bearable is the
company of the other women. She and Rose, especially, have gotten close
over the years. (Jihad Abaza)
Driven by Poverty and Desperation
Linda came to Egypt on a tourist visa, which has since expired. On
her flight into the country, she was accompanied by a cousin of her
friend’s husband. When they arrived at Egyptian border control, they
told the officer that she was the man’s fiancee. “This made me feel a
bit better since that way, [border control] would have less suspicion
about trafficking. A woman who came before me was detained in the
airport for five days because police suspected she was coming here to
work illegally,” Linda says.
A
few months ago, Maria was working in Abu Dhabi, but left to join her
sister in Egypt. They now work in the same household, but in different
parts of the house. “I get to see [my sister] during lunch,” Maria says.
“I am stronger because she is here with me, and she is stronger because
I am here with her.” (Jihad Abaza)
Maysa Ayoub, the head of the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies
at the American University in Cairo, says, “Immigration to Egypt is
restricted to protect the local labor market from foreign competition.”
Obtaining work permits for migrant domestic workers is “close to
impossible,” Ayoub says. “Overpopulation and high level of unemployment
have made Egypt adopt encouraging emigration policies and strict
immigration policies in an attempt to ease pressure on the local labor
market and alleviate poverty.” As a result, most people who come from
abroad to work as nannies, cooks and cleaners do not have work visas or
official residency paperwork.
Maria
has spent so long working in the Middle East, she has barely met her
grandchildren. At Christmas, her family asked her why she was not there
with them. “I am doing this for you,” she told them. (Jihad Abaza)
Because so many domestic workers are in Egypt without legal
documentation, there are no statistics on how many domestic workers
there are in the country. But it is known that those who do come to work
in Egypt can experience the same type of mistreatment that their
colleagues in other Arab countries go through. Domestic workers are
excluded from Egypt’s labor law, which means they have no social, health
or legal protection.
In response to increased reports about the mistreatment of migrant
domestic workers, several countries have tried to stop their citizens
from taking domestic labor jobs in the Middle East. Indonesia in 2015
banned its citizens from working as maids in 21 countries (the list included Egypt).
And the Philippines temporarily prohibited workers from going to Kuwait
after the body of a Filipina worker was found in a freezer in an
abandoned Kuwait City apartment. The Philippines government recently reached an agreement with Kuwait to regulate working conditions for domestic labor.
Rose
has her meals sitting on a stool in the corner of the kitchen. Her
mother passed away two years ago, but she was unable to attend the
funeral due to work obligations. Now her father is ill and her employers
have agreed to let her return home for good at the end of March.
(Jihad Abaza)
But workers from abroad continue to move to the Middle East for jobs, driven by poverty and desperation.
Bird in a Cage
Linda and two other women – Maria, also from the Philippines, and
Rose, from Indonesia – now work in a mansion in the suburbs of Cairo,
for a wealthy Egyptian family. A typical working day usually starts as
early as 5 a.m. and ends at midnight or later. The three women spend
their time catering to the wants and needs of the family’s five
children, who think their parents “bought” the maids. When the day is
over, the women sleep on mattresses in the children’s or the
grandparents’ rooms, in case they need anything in the middle of the
night. There are no days off, and there is no going out unless it is to
accompany the family somewhere.
Passport confiscation is also a common practice among employers, one
that Linda, Maria and Rose have all been subjected to in their time as
domestic workers.
Linda
rests her head on the table as she and Rose take a short break in the
kitchen. Linda says she wants to escape, just like Hana, a Filipina
woman who was working for the same household and escaped while the
family was on vacation. Rose teases her, saying that Linda would get
stuck trying to climb the walls surrounding the mansion. (Jihad Abaza)
Linda says her employers are “OK” – they
treat her better than their other domestic workers. Still, her job is
physically and emotionally taxing, and she often feels she is “stuck.”
But at the same time, she has grown to love the children she cares for.
“I feel lonely,” she says. The job leaves her with no opportunity to
socialize, and being away from the Philippines for so long means she has
drifted apart from many of her old friends.
“It’s like I am a bird and I am in a cage, you know?” she
says. “The owners of the bird might be great. They might be taking care
of it. But it’s still in a cage.”
*The names of some women have been changed to protect their identities.
Sangini Cooperative Bank was
the only financial institution in Mumbai to offer sex workers access to
savings and credit. Now that the bank has closed, the women are left
with only two options: hide their money or risk losing it to
moneylenders and con men.
For the 10 years it was open,
Sangini Cooperative Bank (center) gave 5,000 sex workers access to
savings, credit and insurance when no other bank would accept their
money.Puja Changoiwala
MUMBAI, India –
Dressed in a black, cotton nightgown, her lips painted a dark pink,
28-year-old Uzma* leans against a streetlamp in Mumbai’s Kamathipura, Asia’s second-largest red light district.
The sex worker’s target for the day is six clients, which will make her
1,500 rupees ($23). The amount will cover her day’s basic expenses:
daily rent to the owner of the brothel she works in and her food. The
rest she will sew into a blouse she doesn’t use and hide it away in
her trunk.
“Money needs to be hidden,” Uzma says. “In the past, clients have
beaten me up after they learned I was hoarding cash, took the money and
fled. Even my boyfriend tends to get violent and takes off with
the money.”
It is only recently that Uzma has had to resort to hiding her money.
Until a few months ago, every time she had a client, she would walk to
the Sangini Cooperative Bank nearby and deposit her earnings into her
account. Sangini bank, which got its name from the Hindi word for
“friend” or “companion,” catered specifically to sex workers, offering
them access to financial services when most conventional banks would
turn them away.
But Sangini struggled to make money and was forced to close in
November 2017. Now Uzma and 5,000 other sex workers in Kamathipura who
used the bank are left with no place to store their “dirty” money.
“Most of these women were sold into sexual slavery by their relatives
or pimps,” says Maya Lama, 57, an activist working with sex workers
in Kamathipura.
“They do not have birth certificates, school leaving certificates or
proof of residence – documents that are required to open bank accounts
in India. Worse, regular banks have asked us to keep sex workers away
since other customers protest against banking with them.”
Sangini, which launched in Mumbai in 2007, was only the second bank
of its kind in the country, following a similar initiative in Kolkata.The
bank let sex workers open accounts with no minimum deposit requirement
and offered savings accounts to homeless girls. It had a small staff of
10 volunteers, also sex workers in Kamathipura, and three or four
collection agents, who would visit brothels to pick up deposits from
account holders.
“Collection agents made all the difference,” says Shilpa Merchant, former national coordinator of the Washington D.C.-based NGOPopulation Services International, which initially funded Sangini.
Many sex workers are not allowed to leave their brothels until they
have paid back the amount their madams spent on “purchasing” them, a
goal made almost impossible as madams add rent, food and electricity
bills to what the women owe. “The numbers keep spiralling. It’s years
before the women are able to repay the amount and leave the brothels,”
Merchant says. “With no access to the outside world, collection agents
became saviors for the women.”
‘More Than a Bank’
When Sangini first opened, Merchant says they hoped to have at least
150 accounts registered during the first year. By the end of the first
day, they had already registered more than 100.
“It was more than a bank,” says Mumzura Bibi, 40, a commercial sex worker who had an account with Sangini for eight years.
“There were instances when women would get arrested for illegal
soliciting, and bank employees would withdraw money from their accounts,
bail them out. They’d even come to hospitals to deliver money whenever a
woman was in need. They also counseled us in money management [and]
issues pertaining to our sexual health.”
A
sex worker hides her face from the camera in one of the bylanes of
Kamathipura in south-central Mumbai, Asia’s second-largest red light
district. (Puja Changoiwala)
Riziya Thakur, 35, was trafficked to Kamathipura from Kolkata nine
years ago. With the money she saved in her Sangini account, she bought a
house and a few acres of farmland for herself and her three children.
“The bank let me save my money, and secure my children’s future,” she
says. “Now, with nowhere to keep the money, I pay daily installments to
a moneylender. And the rest I end up spending as it comes.”
Anjali Desai, who worked as Sangini’s bank manager from 2012 until
the bank closed, says most sex workers are in debt, owing money to
pimps, brothel runners and moneylenders who charge them interest rates
as high as 100 percent. The bank, she says, helped the women save the
little money they had and make 3 percent interest on their savings.
“There was a 62-year-old sex worker who arranged money for her son’s
wedding through her savings. There was another who could pay thousands
of rupees in doctor fees for her heart ailment because she had savings
with the bank. Now, they’re stitching up the cash in their clothes and
pillow covers,” Desai says.
Initially backed by Population Services International for two years,
Sangini shut for three months in 2009 when it ran out of funding. Then
the India 800 Foundation, a Delhi-based NGO supported by the Ethnic Minority Foundation, U.K. stepped in and the bank opened again.
But it proved unsustainable as a business. One month’s running costs
would eat up almost a year’s worth of profits. The bank also lost a
substantial amount when it offered interest-free loans to the women
around five years ago, many of which were never paid back. In mid-2017,
the foundation withdrew its support and the bank had to cease
operations. (The Kolkata bank, which is run entirely by sex workers, is
still open.)
“We sent out tens of proposals to garner funds for the bank, but no
donor was forthcoming. The moment we mentioned sex workers, they would
walk away,” says Narayan Hegde, chairman of India 800 and trustee
of Sangini.
No One They Can Trust
Originally launched by HIV awareness
activists who realized day-to-day survival was a bigger concern for sex
workers than contracting the disease, the bank quickly became a route to
financial inclusion for part of the population that is overlooked by
government policy. In 2014, the Indian government started the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana to ensure everyone affordable access to financial services like banking, credit and insurance. According to the government’s progress report, as of the second week of March, women made up more than half of the scheme’s 313.4 million beneficiaries.
But Hegde says the benefits often don’t extend to sex workers since
those women don’t have the documents needed to open bank accounts. And
many of those who do have the requisite identification aren’t even aware
the scheme exists.
“Several of them are not comfortable visiting regular banks since they don’t feel welcome there,” Hegde says.
After
Sangini bank shut, Asha Rai, who has spent three and a half decades as a
sex worker,
gave her money to a local postman for safekeeping. He soon
disappeared, taking her life savings with him. (Puja Changoiwala)
With nowhere to put their earnings, Kamathipura’s sex workers have no
choice but to hide their money or entrust it to someone else, making
themselves vulnerable to fraudsters. Asha Rai, 55, has spent three and a
half decades in the profession. After the bank shut last year, Rai,
like other sex workers, was handed all her savings. Since she doesn’t
have a permanent home, she was clueless as to where to store her money.
She decided to give the cash to a postman working in the area for safe
keeping. Soon after, he disappeared with all of her money.
“Tens of women had trusted the postman with their money, and all of
them ended up getting duped. We approached the police, but they couldn’t
find him,” Rai says.
“I’ve been pushed back 40 years – every penny I’d made was lost. The bank was one of the few entities sex workers could trust.”
If there is no memorandum of agreement
between our country and the accepting countries, then it is foolhardy to
deploy our workers overseas because they will not be protected,” Labor
Secretary Silvestre Bello III said.
Mayen Jaymalin (The Philippine Star) - March 28, 2018 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — The Department of
Labor and Employment (DOLE) supports Senate Resolution No. 676 seeking a
total ban on the deployment of Filipino household service workers
(HSWs) in countries not providing similar rights and work conditions as
their nationals.
“If there is no memorandum of agreement between our country and the
accepting countries, then it is foolhardy to deploy our workers overseas
because they will not be protected,” Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello
III said.
Bello said the DOLE will not hesitate to stop deployment in countries
not giving enough protection to Filipino workers like what happened
in Kuwait.
He said the DOLE and Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) are working
closely to review existing bilateral agreements with countries employing
Filipinos.
“The DOLE and the DFA met two weeks ago to study the template for new
bilateral agreements to provide better protection for our workers,”
Bello said.
Concerning the deployment ban in Kuwait, Bello said he is not
inclined to recommend the lifting of the ban on domestic workers’
deployment even after the proposed agreement with Kuwait is signed in
April.
The DOLE imposed a total deployment ban after the body of Filipina
domestic helper Joanna Demafelis was found stuffed inside a freezer in
an abandoned apartment in Kuwait.
The labor chief expressed hope that the agreement could provide better working conditions for Filipinos in Kuwait.
Bello said the deployment ban will be lifted only after the Kuwait government has ensured justice for the death of Demafelis.
Demafelis’ employers have been arrested, but are yet to be extradited to Kuwait.
“They have to face the consequences of their action, mere detention is not a penalty,” Bello said.
In the resolution last week, the deaths of Demafelis, Irma Avila
Edloy and Josie Lloren, who all died due to abuse sustained while they
worked as domestic helpers abroad, were cited to justify the call for
total deployment ban of HSWs in some countries.
Bello said he sees no need to ban the deployment of domestic workers
in all countries except for those that are not treating Filipinos
fairly.
Deal announced a week after Djibouti seizes Doraleh Container Port
Published: 18:39 March 1, 2018
Staff Report
DUBAI
Ethiopia
has acquired a 19 per cent stake in the Port of Berbera in Somaliland
following an agreement with DP World and the Somaliland Port Authority.
The agreement leaves DP World as the majority shareholder in the port, with 51 per cent. Somaliland will hold 30 per cent.
Under the deal, landlocked Ethiopia will invest in the port as a trade gateway.
The
deal announcement comes a week after the government of Djibouti
illegally seized the Doraleh Container Port, where DP World holds a
30-year concession. According to the World Bank, around 90 per cent of
Ethiopia’s cargo currently travels through Djibouti.
Despite
the seizure — which DP World is contesting through the London Court of
International Arbitration — DP World Chairman and CEO Sultan Ahmad Bin
Sulayem still referred to the port while commenting on the new deal.
In
a statement on Thursday, Bin Sulayem said he was excited about the
prospects of working with the Ethiopian government. “Ethiopia is home to
approximately 110 million people. The ports of Berbera and Doraleh will
provide significant capacity to the region. Both these ports and more
capacity will be needed to serve the region’s growth potential in the
future.”
He added: “The economies of the region are growing at a
pace that needs the development of Berbera supplementing Djibouti and
additional gateways in the future.”
Ethiopian Transport Minister
Ahmad Shide said the deal had been a year in the making. “The agreement
will help Ethiopia secure an additional logistical gateway for its ever
increasing import and export trade driven by its growing population and
economy,” he said.
“In addition, Ethiopian participation in the
development of port of Berbera and the Berbera Corridor will help bring
increased economic development and opportunity to the people of
Somaliland. Ethiopia will continue to further invest in and develop the
Djibouti corridor and further consolidate the use of existing ports in
Djibouti. It will also look for other opportunities to develop
additional ports and logistics corridors in the region.”
Dr Saad
Al Shire, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation for
the Republic of Somaliland, said: “This is a very important project
that will address some of the problems facing Somaliland concerning
employment and investment.
“It is a welcome development that will
benefit the region as a whole. The economies of the region are growing
at a pace that necessitates the development of multiple ports and
outlets. The extension of the port will increase capacity of the region
to accommodate the increase in trade.”
WOODBURN, Ind. (AP) — A Safe Haven Baby Box where mothers can drop
off unwanted newborns anonymously with emergency help moments away is
now available in northeastern Indiana. CLICK FOR 8 MORE PHOTOS TO SEE HOW THE BOXES WORK
The padded, climate-controlled container was dedicated Tuesday at the
Woodburn Volunteer Fire Department about 15 miles east of Fort Wayne
near the Ohio state line. It’s on an exterior wall of the fire station. UPDATE: Newborn left in a controversial baby drop-off box
The Knights of Columbus of Indiana will pay for the first 100 baby
boxes, which cost $1,500 to $2,000 each, said Monica Kelsey, a volunteer
with the fire department who has been advocating for baby boxes in
Indiana for several years.
A second one was dedicated Thursday in Michigan City.
The boxes are equipped with a security system that notifies emergency
personnel when a baby is dropped off. Emergency responders can get to
the child within minutes.
All 50 states and the District of Columbia have safe haven laws,
which allow unharmed newborns to be surrendered without fear of
prosecution. Indiana’s law allows mothers to drop off newborns at police
stations, fire stations and hospitals.
Critics of baby boxes contend the containers make it easier to
surrender a child without exploring other options and can deprive
mothers of needed medical care.
Kelsey, however, said that some people want total anonymity. She
spoke of a girl who called a hotline she volunteers for who wanted to
know where a baby box was. The girl refused to go to a hospital or fire
station to drop off the baby, but eventually, her boyfriend brought the
baby to a hospital.
“This is not criminal,” Kelsey said. “This is legal. We don’t want to push women away.”
The Woodburn baby box was actually installed April 19, the
anniversary of when Kelsey says her birth mother abandoned her at a
hospital when she was just hours old.
State Rep. Casey Cox, R-Fort Wayne, has supported the concept of baby
boxes in Indiana and has been working with lawmakers and Gov. Mike
Pence’s administration on safety protocols.
“It was like Freddy Kruger, Jason, & Michael Myers
All Rolled into One Times a Thousand, I Never been so scared in my life
I’m sleeping with the lights on f*ck that”
Said a visible shaken Jameel Mendoza after watching an advanced screening of Stephen Kings New Movie IT.
A packed theatre in Haddonfield, New York watched an advanced
screening of IT and they had to cut the movie short after several people
were so horrified they passed out and went into cardiac arrest.
“I don’t know what it is but that ain’t no clown, they definitely gave
it the right name “IT” cuz a clown it’s not!” — Movie Goer
Scientist Frederick Bookman gave a statement saying: Unfortunately, movies are not just entertainment, but a way to
attack your consciousness. This movie could have triggered the brain by
those images, they are powerful too, and their body had a natural
response to terror. Fight or flight. And sadly it was flight. So please
be careful when you looking for entertainment in movies like IT. And
please dont take the your children, talking about ” we use to watch this
when we was little”. Guard your consciousness folks.
We will update you as we get more info as there have been similar
cases in several other theaters across the country and the movie has
been banned.
We have learned that United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
is now very concerned that an estimated one million pounds of rat meat.
Which is being passed off as “boneless chicken wings,” has been sold in restaurants and grocery stores across America.
According to reports, FDA inspectors raised concerns after several
illegal shipping containers originating from China were seized by
customs at the Port of San Francisco.
It was found to contain rat meat that was meant to be shipped to
different meat processing plants across America and resold as chicken.
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One report says that if hundreds of thousands of pounds of the illegal
meat have been seized and are to be destroyed by authorities.
The FDA warns an estimated 1,000,000 pounds of the counterfeit rat meat might still be in circulation.
With nowhere to put their earnings, Kamathipura’s sex workers have no
choice but to hide their money or entrust it to someone else, making
themselves vulnerable to fraudsters. Asha Rai, 55, has spent three and a
half decades in the profession. After the bank shut last year, Rai,
like other sex workers, was handed all her savings. Since she doesn’t
have a permanent home, she was clueless as to where to store her money.
She decided to give the cash to a postman working in the area for safe
keeping. Soon after, he disappeared with all of her money.
Published:
Updated: 
