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MAID IN HELL
Start date: Nov 26, 2015, End date: May 25, 2018 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Harassment, abuse and 18-hour working days—the lives of thousands of domestic workers in the Middle East, resemble modern slavery. Maids coming from poor countries in Africa and Asia are locked up for years and with their passports confiscated they are unable to escape the omnipresent control of their employer.Any immigrant worker in the Middle East needs an employer, a sponsor, to be allowed entry. The sponsor holds responsibility for the worker – this is known as The Kafala system and gives the employer absolute control of the women. The essence of the kafala system is a relationship binding employee to the employer, which has often been criticised as "slave-like". The paradox is that the kafala is not a law but a tradition.In its early incarnation in the 1930s, it was in the best tradition of Arab hospitality, but now unscrupulous kafeels exploit the systemThis investigative film will give an inside comprehensive look at modern slavery from the maids as well as the perpetrators` point of view.The film uncovers the human trafficking and the maids’ stories in detail. It reveals how vulnerable women are beaten, raped, tortured – or simply disappear. It shows how agents in the Middle East, with partners in Asia and Africa, set up the trafficking as a lucrative and risk-free business where millions of women are traded to families in the Middle East that can treat the women - who were dreaming of a better future - as they desire.
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