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Recruitment of migrant domestic workers

East

The high demand for foreign domestic workers in the Arab states has created a flourishing and profitable market for private employment agencies and informal brokers that supply labour from many countries, mainly Asian and African source countries. Statistics from the International Federation of Private Employment Agencies (CIETT) show that 34 per cent of the world’s 72,000 private employment agencies are based in the Asia-Pacific region and 8 percent in Africa, though most of these agencies are temporary staffing agencies that are not involved in cross-border migration. Local recruiters trawl through villages and portray pictures of promising working environment, success and profitable income in urban centers or rich countries abroad. They have been known to promise recruits income to help them build in their native countries or, for younger recruits, the opportunity to continue their education abroad. Labor recruiters and agencies undergo scant monitoring, and in most countries, few regulations exist to control the recruitment fees charged to workers. Private recruitment agencies orchestrate much of the migration process from pre-departure to the return. They provide information, financial and logistical support; however, migrant domestic workers’ dependence on private agencies for so many services create many opportunities for exploitation and abuse.

According to International Labor Organization, there exist frequent irregularities concerning these intermediaries (i.e., recruiters and agents in sending and receiving countries). Therefore, the inconsistencies, between regulations in source and destination countries, as well as loopholes in existing laws and regulations create opportunities for unscrupulous agencies to exploit the system. Intermediaries who provide services to facilitate the migration process have been indicated to be important perpetrators of exploitation of women migrant workers. Taking advantage of migrants’ desperation to find work, agents and employers have been accused of shifting the burden of recruitment fees, including airfare, visas, and administrative fees, on to the workers themselves, while employers pay a nominal fee. This creates a heavy debt burden on international migrant domestic workers. Many Indonesian domestic workers migrating to Persian Gulf countries take out loans from local moneylenders with interest rates as high as 100 percent to pay these fees, while those traveling to Asia typically use a “fly now, pay later” scheme. For example, in Singapore and Hong Kong, Indonesian migrant domestic workers often spend up to 10 months out of a two-year contract without a salary, since they must turn over these wages to repay their recruitment fees. The resulting financial pressure makes it difficult for workers to report abuse for fear of losing their jobs and having no way to pay off their debts. Experience has shown that bans on the recruitment and deployment of migrant workers, which often affect domestic workers disproportionally, are difficult to enforce and drive the recruitment process further underground. In addition, the extravagant fees charged by recruiting agencies and the weak legal system in the countries in question establish the path for non-registered recruiters and brokers to engage in trafficking of migrants for domestic work.

Kafala system

In the Arab countries, recruiters match domestic workers with their employers through the kafala system or sponsorship system. This system binds domestic workers’ visa and legal status directly to a kafl (or sponsor), who maintains control over her mobility for the duration of her stay in the host country. Consequently, migrant domestic workers cannot change their place of employment without obtaining prior approval from their employer-sponsor. The kafala system over the years has been credited with the “privatization of regional migration”, creating unequal working conditions and violations of rights of migrant domestic workers.

West

In the Western world, the employment of migrant domestic workers differs from the predominant hiring and recruiting trends in the East. In Europe, migration has followed a pattern from East to West, that is from Eastern Europe to Western, Southern and Northern Europe and from South to North, from Latin America, Asia and Africa to the EU countries. The demand for migrant domestic workers has been credited to the welfare system of these countries. In order to enable female nationals to ‘reconcile’ care work and a working life, some European states have installed a quota system for the recruitment of domestic workers (Spain, Italy, Greece), which allows employers to recruit workers from abroad under specific criteria, or they have opened their borders to these workers (Britain and Ireland with the domestic worker visa). Others, such as Germany, the Nordic States, and the Netherlands, have hardly acknowledged the need for migrant domestic workers, let alone included this need in their managed migration policies. United States and Canada have adopted migrant programs such as Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 IRCA and Live-In Caregiver program, respectively, in order to facilitate the employment of migrant domestic workers.

Informal economy

The high demand for domestic care, along with different social welfare structures, together with restrictive migration policies, has led to an extensive informal domestic services market with a high percentage of undocumented foreign workers in Western countries. For this reason, despite the IRCA's intent to limit illegal migration, it has been accused of promoting the undocumented immigration of women. The employment of domestic migrant workers in these countries is known to be based on social capital. There are three entrance doors through which women enter the domestic sector. First, there is the "co-Optation modality" whereby women channel each other into each other into employment positions, by mainly relying from the moment of arrival on social networks made-up of family members, friends and/or acquaintances who connect them with potential employers in the country. Second, there is "freelance domestic worker" by building her own clientele through newspapers and magazines job offers, distributing cards offering services in residential areas. Finally, there is the "communitarian social network", which unlike co-Optation,is formed after migration. Religious networks (i.e., churches) are extremely important in network-building of many female immigrants. This entrance door is rarely used upon arrival as it requires the formation of new contacts amongst immigrants.