Amman – Shireen Mazen

Should not we be proud that the kingdom has achieved what no other did by keeping our country free of any incident that could refer to human trafficking? If you are telling your children that slavery era has gone, then you only need to listen to the whispering of those tortured who fled their countries looking for jobs, to find selves victims of human trafficking.

Dear gentlemen, we are surrounded by human slavery that contains all ancient details that deal with human trafficking. The only new thing is that some of us are unaware of it.

‘It is slavery that only lacks a specialized market and ‘instruments and seals’ to prove that this person is that one’s slave. As for practices, they look too much like old time slaves have been through’, according to a victim.

Sarah, an Arab citizen of no more than 25 years of age, has decided to travel to Levant area, to the kingdom in particular. She was sold here using new contracts that human demons have been able to innovate after the disappearing of old slavery instruments.

The Arab citizen came to the kingdom as a waitress in a hotel. She woke up later on a nightmare that made her a prisoner at a night club after its owner surrounded her with work contract, trust receipt with large amounts, and hard work conditions.

Sarah is working as a prostitute now despite that she thought, when she left her country, that she is going to work like her other fellow countrywomen as waitress in a hotel, restaurant, or even as a receptionist for a well-known company.

She ended up a prisoner at a night club with a security cordon and curfew around her. She can not wander except in her room and under the eyes of guards who do not leave her even when she is in the bathroom.

Arabian Sarah, who talked to ‘New Content’ project through a third party, is a model for other workers who came to Jordan under work contracts to find themselves involved in working at night clubs or organized prostitution.

What Sarah and others who share the same fate with her have been through is not limited to being a violation of the Jordanian Labour Law, but expanded to be almost human trafficking.

These violations of the Jordanian Labour Law are not considered only as so, they are listed under the suspicion of human trafficking as the humanitarian report of the Jordanian Labour Observatory indicated in December of 2010.

UN protocol defines human trafficking as ‘recruiting, transferring, sheltering, or receiving people through threats or the use of force or other compulsion means, kidnapping, forging, deception, power abuse, state of weakness, paying or receiving payments, or services in return of getting the approval to be controlled by another person to abuse him, the minimum limit abuse includes luring people to work in prostitution or any other form of sexual abuse, compulsion of work or serve, slavery, or slavery-like practices, life imprisonment, or organs removal’.

Sarah indicated that she and four other countrywomen were forced to sign trust receipt with large amounts to guarantee our commitment to work, and to threat them to be imprisoned when needed.

The prison, which her (master) threats her with, does not differ from her reality that she describes as an ‘unofficial prison’. In addition to the receipts she signed on, her employer limits her movement.

She says: He chose my living place. He allows or denies me from going to a certain place. He appointed a guard to follow me even when I go for bathroom.

In order to increase the observation over Sarah and other workers, their employer have denied them access to any means of communications except those calls from lust seekers, that are taking place under security observation.

The paradox lies in the fact that everything happening to Sarah and other employees in this ‘Arabian’ country is against the Jordanian Labour Law that does not force workers to work against their will and what has been agreed upon in the contract, according to article 176.

Article 12 punishes the employer that forces his expatriate employee to work against work permit granted to him by paying a fine that ranges between JD200 and JD500 per employee. This fine shall be doubled at each repetition.

Has the kingdom ever lacked regulations and legislations? If we are talking about legislations, then, we describe the community through it as virtuous, but that is true!

When we asked Sarah about the possibility of helping herself by leaving work or ever to flee it, she ruled out the idea. She said that her passport is held and that she is surrounded and hunted by receipts as well as work contracts that will throw me from the unofficial prison to the official one. I can not protect my self. I am asking private and public institutions in Jordan to save me. Am I not an Arab citizen? Am I not a human being? Is not it prohibited in Jordan to make humans slavers?

When an employer holds passports of employers, it is considered a violation of article 18 of passport law. The employer then should be imprisoned for a period of no less than 6 months and no more than 3 years, or to pay a fine of JD500 – JD1000. This is also a violation of article 77 of holing passports according to the Jordanian Law.

Sarah and her co-workers, in addition to being forced to work against their work permits, are deprived from their rights entitled to them by law. They have no access to health insurance or social security. They are also asked to work for extra long hours and has no off days. She added: Once you are being slavered, your demands to have access to health insurance and social security are kind of luxury in the wrong place. You are already deprived from your humanity.

Sarah’s case does not differ a lot from that of Rose, who is from a neighbouring country of Sarah’s. 30 year old Rose came to Jordan to work as a receptionist in a hotel before she faced what she is suffering, just like those who preceded her. But Rose added that she has been through many and continuous verbal and sexual harassments.

Such incidents are confirmed by the report issued by the general union of service workers and free professions that said that some clubs are witnessing violations such as holding personal documents of workers ‘passports’ in order to force them to work against work contracts in addition to avoid pay rise, not to mention sexual assaults female workers are suffering from. Another thing is exchanging sponsors from employers to employees illegally.

There are no official stats for the number of workers at the night clubs, where the union of free works indicates at 18 thousands female workers in the tourism sector most of them are Arabs and foreigners.

10% of human trafficking in the Arab world is forced labouring and 90% is sexual abuse, according to a study by Nihal Fahmi, a human trafficking expert, which was issued in October 2010.

Tamkeen Centre manager, Linda Al-Kilsh, said that human trafficking is a complicated process where its causes are overlapped with many political, economic, and social factors. She reiterated that most of those suffering from this are women.

Professional Training Centre Director at the Criminal Investigation Directorate, Muhannad Wreikat, has reviled that many human trafficking victims have been brought before court, including housemaids, night clubs workers, and involved at kidney selling issues.

According to official stats, human trafficking department has dealt with 14 case in 2009 and 22 in 2010 that were kidney selling, housemaids, and selling children. The department has also dealt with 76 cases where conditions of human trafficking did not applied to them, like threats and passport holding.

Jordan has signed on the international agreement for crime fighting through ‘Palermo’. The national law for fighting human trafficking has been issued in 2009 after joining the optional protocol regarding prohibiting, suppressing, and fighting human trafficking.

Work Contract Business

Human trafficking crime does not include night clubs workers or women only; it expands to include other categories as well. Experts put it this way: Where ever we have expatriates, we are afraid of having victims of that business via Work Contract Business gangs.

An expatriate, who works at a cafeteria in Amman, says that he paid JD1000 in order to obtain a work permit that allows him to enter the kingdom looking for work.

Another youth came to Jordan with his brother and cousin after they paid the same amount looking for work, under the ‘work permit’ category.

This expatriate adds that they might need to pay another amount of money for their sponsors in order to approve their move for another job where they can earn more money.

The amount of money that is called ‘liberation value’, which even indicated human trafficking, is valued at JD500-JD1000, according to the sector this worker is going to work at.

The expatriate usually falls a victim of staying illegal in the kingdom that means he has to pay overstaying fees due to his illegal staying at the end of his work permit, or he finds himself forced to go back for the same dilemma of paying money for certain people to arrange for his new work permit.

Mohammad is an expatriate that has been in Jordan for a year and a half, he works illegally after his work permit expired without having anyone who is ready to renew it for him. The 24 year old young man said that he is feeling insecure following the expiring of his work permit. It needs to be renewed, yet, there is no one to do so. Overstaying fees have started to accumulate and he started to be afraid of any presence of security forces. Mohammad added that he started to run away from police and security forces. He mentioned that he came to Jordan through a fellow countryman mediator who received JD800.

Expatriates in Jordan are suffering from the fact that their employers are holding their passports as a means of guaranteeing their presence or not to flee their work sites, not to mention the injustice treatment they have by the numerous violations such as the crowded accommodations they are offered, which do not have the simplest health conditions. Most of expatriates are deprived from health insurance and social security.

Work Contract Business is listed under Jordanian Human Trafficking Law that indicates that ‘attracting anyone, transfer, shelter, or receive them for the purpose of abusing them is considered a crime of human trafficking’. Do such texts seem to frighten human traffickers?

Can we stop for a while now to say that we are proud of ourselves because an Arab citizen or a foreigner has decided to live among us in sound and safe?

This report is prepared for new content project, under the supervision of Luqman Eskandar