Strange encounters with cruel bosses

Anna is a domestic worker in Kuwait. Whenever her madame sits in front of the mirror and puts on makeup, Anna is asked to stay close by and comment.

“You’re very beautiful Madame,” Anna always replies.

One time, Anna got peeved at this routine. So she stopped telling her madame that she was beautiful. She intimated that her employer was not really good-looking and she was just forced to say that.

After this, Anna’s employer started to physically abuse her. Her employer would hit her in the face with her high heels.

Because of this painful and cruel encounter with her employer, Anna returned to the country with big scars (heel marks) on her face.

Leaping for life?

Melanie, another overseas Filipino worker (OFW) has her own tale of cruel encounters with employers overseas. She served a family in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, who locked her alone inside the house. Her employers would give her food scraps only twice a day.

She would wake up at 5 a.m. and end her heavy workload at midnight. At  times, when her employers had visitors, she would retire at 2 a.m.

Despite her long work hours, she would be given her first meal at 3 p.m. and her next and final meal at about 10 p.m.

Always hungry, Melanie would sometimes rummage through the garbage to find food. She could not get food from the refrigerator because it was always locked.

Adding to the cruelty of her employer, only leftovers and spoiled food were given to our OFW to eat.

Because of her constant hunger, Melanie decided to run away. She jumped from the third floor of her employer’s house. The only thing in her mind was to be able to leave the house because she believed she would die of starvation.

Better than home?

OFW Girlie in Hong Kong works for a policeman who demands that Girlie stands in the sun and watches him while he does his  laps in the pool.

Girlie thinks her employer finds some strange satisfaction watching her stand for hours in the sun. After this kind of “tripping,” he requires Girlie to go back to his unit, located at the 34th floor of the building, by going upstairs instead of using the elevator.

However, according to Girlie, she would rather endure this kind of harsh treatment than return home to her husband who is lazy, has no job and treats her like a punching bag in the Philippines.

Extra service, extra pay?

Linda’s male employer took a liking to her on her very first day of work in Qatar. He told her that aside from her responsibilities as a domestic helper, she could do extra tasks for extra pay.

Linda agreed to her employer’s offer.  For every “extra service” she was asked to do, there was compensation as promised.

She said she was able to save a lot of money because of the extra services she did for her employer.

But after about a year, Linda called Bantay OCW through Radyo Inquirer to complain that she was being raped by her employer. She revealed  that her employer has been abusing her sexually for a year.

When we asked Linda why it took her so long to complain, she told us that it was because her employer didn’t seem to want her extra services anymore, therefore she lost her extra pay.

Even though Linda was probably the one to blame for agreeing to this arrangement in the first place, Bantay OCW still helped her return to the country.

Our OFWs have discovered different faces of cruelty in the world. Their stories leave us with many nuanced learnings and lessons .

Susan Andes, aka Susan K. is on board at Radyo Inquirer 990 dzIQ-AM, Monday to Friday 12:30-2:00 p.m. with  live streaming: www.dziq.am. Hotlines:  5357209/ 8819423/ 0920968 4700. E-mail:  [email protected]/[email protected]