Mission & Justice

Haya Al-Manie; 14/9/08

The presence of a housemaid in a Saudi house has become inevitable. If this inevitability is not because of her services, then it is because of the need to imitate others. This is a fact that everybody knows. The need for housemaids is connected to the ways Saudis live — women go to work, responsibilities for the social and educational welfare of children, men failing to help with house duties, few day-care facilities for children, large and spacious homes, extended families and increasing numbers of children. The net result is that the majority of families need to have housemaids. The truth of the matter is that some of us need more than one housemaid. The problem does not lie in hiring a housemaid, but in the problems these housemaids possibly bring to the home. Some of these problems are difficult to deal with, especially when they relate to the murder or abuse of children. Some of these crimes, such as thefts and absconding maids, can be surpassed. The problem of housemaids has increased tremendously. Even recruitment has become a problem for middle-income families, which constitute the majority of Saudi society.

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Peter Gregory; 12/9/08

One of the world’s largest defence contractors has won an exemption from equal opportunity laws so it can hire, move and restrict information to its 180 Victorian employees based on where they were born. BAE Systems Australia, the local division of the former British Aerospace, sought the ruling in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to allow it to comply with American security rules, which were tightened after the September 11 attacks. The Australian Defence Force, which gets technology, products and data from the US, is the local company’s main customer.

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Sarah Smiles; 12/9/08

Unscrupulous foreign migration agents are exploiting Australia’s 457 visa system by extorting money from foreign workers and encouraging employers to overwork them. The concern has been raised in a paper by Industrial Relations Commissioner Barbara Deegan, who has been appointed by the Federal Government to examine the integrity of the 457 temporary visa scheme. In her paper Ms Deegan describes how foreign middlemen often demand excessive fees to secure jobs for foreign workers in Australia, or deceitfully demand up to $10,000 a year to renew workers’ visas when they have already been granted for up to four years. The agents, in turn, encourage Australian employers to exploit the workers, telling them they will work “unlimited hours” for the minimum wage.

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11/9/08

Women in casual or contract jobs are the most likely targets for sexual harassment in Australian workplaces, according to a new study. They are up to 10 times more likely to experience unwanted sexual advances than those in permanent full-time positions, research by the University of Melbourne has found. “Our study shows that 79 per cent of those who experience unwanted sexual advances at work are women,” Associate Professor Anthony LaMontagne said. He said people employed in casual jobs were about five times more likely to be subjected to unwanted sexual advances.

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Abdul Jalil Mustafa; 10/908; http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=114085&d=10&m=9&y=2008

The Jordanian government is considering drafting a law for combating human trafficking, primarily designed to protect rights of expatriates working in the country, Interior Minister Eid Al-Fayez said yesterday. The move came after Indonesian authorities reportedly barred entry of 40 job recruiters to the country, accusing them of human trafficking. Al-Fayez said a panel comprising representatives from relevant Jordanian recruitment agencies would liaise with the embassies of the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Indonesia in order to reach a common understanding on the best practices to ensure the safety of domestic helpers and protect their rights.

Hani Hazaimeh; 9/9/08

The government is expected to draw up a draft law on human trafficking, Minister of Interior Eid Fayez said on Monday. Fayez, who chaired a meeting at his ministry yesterday to discuss the issue, said the concept of human trafficking cannot be accurately defined but that Jordan combats all forms of this act. The meeting was also attended by Labour Minister Bassem Salem, Environment Minister and acting Minister of Health Khalid Irani, Minister of Industry and Trade Amer Hadidi, Justice Minister Ayamn Odeh and Minister of Social Development Hala Latouf. “Jordan takes all necessary measures to ensure guest workers and all visitors the utmost care and respect out of an unwavering stand promoting and safeguarding human rights,” Fayez told The Jordan Times. He added that the government is always on alert to defend the country’s image when groundless accusations are directed at its people and institutions.

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Bree Blakeman & Nanni Concu; 3/8/09

Debates about remote Indigenous communities, with very few exceptions, are crafted with a discourse of negation: people on the ‘margins’ of society, on the ‘margins’ of the economy with ‘little or no education’ who are nothing more than exiled economic citizens. The implication is clear; as Helen Hughes said recently, Indigenous people can’t read, they can’t write, they don’t have skills, [and seasonal fruit picking] is about the only thing they can do! Their communities are rendered as socio-economic vacuums in our thriving settler state. When the debate is cast in these terms, one can understand the sense of urgency to educate Indigenous people, ’skill’ them up and make them ‘job ready’ so we can break down, in Marcia Langton’s words, ‘the apartheid system of employment’. They are waiting for us to fill them out and colour them in with education and skills, to bring them into the real world and the real economy.

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8/9/08; http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/08/2357789.htm?section=justin

Nepal’s Maoist-led coalition Government has abolished the Haliya system, a slavery-like condition, by freeing about 20,000 poor people from the hands of moneylenders and landlords, a cabinet minister said. Under the system, prevalent for decades in nine districts in western Nepal, moneylenders force poor villagers who borrow money from them to plough their land until they repay their debt. They are offered low wages which are never enough to feed their families, let alone repay the loan, as labourers get trapped in the vicious cycle of debt.”The Government abolished the system on Saturday,” said Peace and Reconstruction Minister Janardan Sharma, a former Maoist rebel commander. “Anyone who practises the system will be punished,” Mr Sharma said, without spelling out the penalty.

Gideon Levy; 7/9/08

The middle of nowhere. The narrow highway that crosses the desert was recently widened in order to enable passage of the heavy equipment needed to build the separation fence. But the highway ends suddenly and turns into a gravel road. We keep on driving, raising a long trail of dust. Occasionally we encounter an encampment, occasionally a camel. There is no desert in Israel as arid as this one, the Judean Desert, between Hashem al-Karem and Hashem al-Daraj, on the way to the Dead Sea. Here and there you see a child in a blue school uniform crossing the yellowish expanses on his way from nowhere, where his school is, to nowhere, where his encampment is. One child flees in panic when we try to ask him about the tent of Mukhtar Yussef.

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Elisabeth Wynhausen; 6/9/08
The suit was a beautiful dove-grey. The cropped jacket had a rounded collar and three-quarter sleeves. Once the trousers were taken up, the whole thing would fit like a glove. It cost a fraction less than $600. If it wasn’t the most expensive outfit I’d bought, it was close. But I wanted something special to wear to the launch of my book, Dirt Cheap: Life at the Wrong End of the Job Market, in 2005. I started wondering only the other month if the dove-grey Perri Cutten suit I had worn to launch a book about exploited low-paid workers had been made in Australia by an even lower-paid one. By then I’d decided to find out about recent additions to my wardrobe. Perhaps knowing more about the garments would help defuse the minefield of ethical dilemmas shopping has become. Now the most desultory shopping expedition can involve a debate with oneself about the ecological footprint of a cotton T-shirt, the dyes used in the treatment of leather or the working conditions in garment factories in the Pearl River Delta in China.

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