Why Slavery?

Episode
Maid in Hell
Broadcast Info
2018 (59 mins)
Description
On May 28th 2016, it is nighttime in Nairobi, as flight MS849 arrives in Kenya. On board is a woman returning from a job as a maid in Jordan. 35 year old Mary Kibwana, a mother of four, is in a wheelchair- 70 percent of her body is burned. She is picked up by an ambulance and rushed to Kenyatta National Hospital. At the hospital, her relatives gather, not knowing if she will survive. They hear her recall a shocking story of events that unfolded in Jordan. What Mary experienced turns out to be beyond imagination. Every year, thousands of women from poorer countries in Africa and Asia return from the Middle East with similar horrifying accounts of trying to find work and ending up trapped in modern slavery, unpaid for their labour they experiene severe beatings and sexual assault as a norm. These women have become trapped in the Kafala System- a set of laws governing migrant labour in the Middle East that binds labourers to their employers. Their passports are confiscated and trying to escape means they risk harsh punishments or imprissonment. Woven into this system is a network of unscrupulous employment agents that intentionally put hundreds of thousands of women at risk of physical assault, harassment and extreme exploitation for personal gain. Most often the perpetrators of these crimes will never see the inside of a court room. Poor and often illiterate women are up against rich and powerful families in the Middle East. An uneven battle forces most victims to simply give up and try to forget what happened. But not in the case of Mary Kibwana. The images of her burned body cause national outcry in Kenya and two weeks later her brother-in-law gets on a plane to Jordan and rallies acitivists and politicians to seek justice. It is one of the first high profile cases that reveals the truth about an employment system hiding a reality of torture and humiliation. Giving unprecedented access to one of the most frightening and brutal foms of forced labour in the modern world Maid in Hell exposes the secretive inner workings of the Kafala System. By following employment agents who vividly describe the trade, as well as maids who struggle to find a way home after both traumatic and degrading experiences, we come to understand the horrific reality faced by thousands of women each day.
Genre
Law; Philosophy and Ethics; Social Science

How to cite this record

The Open University, "Why Slavery?". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ou/search/index.php/prog/232076 (Accessed 08 Jan 2025)