Haryatin lost her sight in Saudi Arabia. She first left Indonesia in 1998 to work as domestic help. Her first employer was kind, the second miserly and the third committed horrendous physical acts of violence against her, leaving her disabled — all of this she told journalist Karen Emmons, who has been working with photographer Steve McCurry on a project entitled "No One Should Work This Way", documenting and exposing the abuse migrant domestic workers face across Asia and the Middle East.
Anis, 25, from Indonesia, abused in Hong Kong.
Haryatin's last employer had nine children. She slept in a storage room and worked well into the night. She once failed to change the nappy of the youngest child because she had been washing clothes at 3am. Her employer was angry she had to do it herself, and wiped the faeces on Haryatin's face, then forced her to keep washing the clothes while hitting Haryatin with a folded cable.
Her story isn't unique. Emmons' and McCurry's work accrues visual evidence of physical scars inflicted on these women.
"It's not a one-off; it's not just one horrible story you hear once a year," says Emmons.
Over the past 18 months, Emmons and McCurry, supported by the International Labor Organization (ILO), have travelled to Indonesia, the Philippines and Nepal, as well as shelters in Hong Kong, meeting with men and women who have returned to their home countries and recording their stories. Some are now unable to work, some are in hiding, disowned by their families. Others contribute a large part of their time working for domestic workers' unions. Most had left home in desperation, looking for work to provide for their families, their children.
The photographs will be exhibited at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand until the middle of next month, following an opening yesterday evening that featured a discussion on the prevention of abuse of domestic workers.
"I think being asked about your experience and your story is empowering. Telling a stranger their stories is an act of bravery. There's more pressure for me not to let these stories sit on a shelf," says Emmons.
The photos are as explicit as the stories in their captions. Most women stared straight into McCurry's camera — he's best known as the photographer of the iconic "Afghan Girl" cover of National Geographic — but others, for different reasons, choose not to show their faces.
Pavitra (a pseudonym) covers most of her face with a headscarf.
She is visibly pregnant, a result of rape by her former employer. Pavitra spent five months in jail in Oman after her female employer pressed charges against her for seduction. She has returned to Nepal but hasn't returned home, for fear that her family would not accept her after what happened.
McCurry is revered for his ability to capture the ways conflicts affect people and impress upon their being — the defiance, for example, that burns through the Afghan Girl's piercing green eyes. She was photographed at the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in 1984.
"I thought he would be able to bring something out of this horror. Not to make it pretty, but make it bearable to look at, to show the women dignified," says Emmons.
The team worked with local organisations that vetted the interview subjects, informing them of the scope of the project, that the photographer would be male and that their information would be on the internet. They worked with religious restrictions and, in some cases, the need for anonymity.
"You can't photograph psychological abuse. You can't photograph conversations that happened a long time ago. The name-calling, you can't photograph that.
"As sensitive as it appears to certain people, I thought it was necessary to show what has been done," she says.
Emmons refers to the recent case of Erwiana Sulistyaningsih, an Indonesian who worked in Hong Kong, where she was physically and mentally abused for more than eight months.
She was sent home in a wheelchair after becoming unable to work. Erwiana pressed charges, and as many as 5,000 people took to the streets to demand justice for her in Hong Kong in January this year.
"It was the picture that outraged Hong Kong. Protests started because of the picture. Pictorial evidence can make a difference," she says.
"It takes one image ... to see something and you can't ignore it any longer. The photos could make some people uncomfortable and be moved to do something about it in their realm of jurisdiction."
In Hong Kong, as in places like Nepal and the Philippines, domestic workers are allowed to form unions, which serve to educate workers on their rights and act as support systems.
Emmons was informed that the Thai embassy in Hong Kong used to do random checks on domestic workers, to ensure that accommodation was as specified and that the agreements stated in contracts were being honoured. There are, however, significantly less Thai migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong than Filipinos and Indonesians. The total number in Hong Kong hovers around 300,000.
The ILO estimates that there are 52 million domestic workers around the world, and 250,000 in Thailand. A large proportion of domestic workers, however, both local and illegal migrants, go unregistered.
"So many of [the women], don't know they have rights. They don't know that their passport shouldn't be taken from them, that they don't have to endure the abuse. They don't' know that if they aren't given their day off, they can do something about it," Emmons explains.
"The ILO works with agencies and sets up orientation programmes. The Philippines requires better orientation programmes to make people aware of what to expect, what might happen. The help is taught basic skills on how to use modern appliances, where they can go, and about local culture."
Yet in many cases Emmons has recorded, several agencies not only fail to protect the workers, but were the perpetrators themselves.
"It was as if [the workers] were property or they weren't human. The rules of civility didn't apply," says Emmons. "People think in the privacy of their own homes, they can get away with a lot. In many stories, the employers say to them, 'I can do whatever I want with you, you are not my relative'. Some people would say, 'I'm rich and I can do whatever I want'."
Change has to come at the legislative level. In 2011, the ILO instituted Convention 189, which asks that domestic workers be considered workers and be entitled to labour law protection and workers' rights. The home, for them, is the workplace.
"You can't legislate decency. You can't legislate nice people. You can't keep someone mean from being allowed to employ someone else," says Emmons. "Change begins with governments ratifying the convention, because they would be beholden to follow through. You can't interfere with the lawmaking of another country, but you can protect your own people."
'No One Should Work This Way' will be exhibited at the FCCT from Thursday until mid-December.
Sritak, 30, from Indonesia, abused in Taiwan
