AMMAN - Human rights watch said today Jordanian legal system allows flagrant abuse of domestic helpers that includes beating, human trafficking and other forms of abuse.The New York based organization said the desert kingdom failed to protect Asian domestic workers from systematic abuse by employers and agents. The report, published today, said workers face different types of abuse including beatings, confiscation of passports, confinement to the house, insults, non-payment of salaries, and overlong working hours with no days off. In a detailed report, the organization documents abuses against domestic workers and the failure of Jordanian officials to hold employers and the agents who recruited the workers accountable. The report also criticizes Jordanian immigration and domestic work labor laws for facilitating abuse, such as confinement in the home and imposing fines for overstaying the legal residency period, even where the worker is not at fault. Jordan reportedly has at least 70,000 migrant domestic workers from Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Several countries recently threatened to stop sending workers to Jordan in light of ongoing abuse to their nationals including Philippines, which has around 40, 000 people working in Jordan as domestic helpers. (ANSAmed). Full Story>>Domestic Workers Systematically Abused in Muslim Jordon http://www.ansamed.info/en/news/ME.XAM79828.html
