ERBIL-Hewlêr, Kurdistan region ‘Iraq’,— “I have been working in the Kurdistan Region for five years. The people look at us as if we are prostitutes, and we are constantly made to feel uncomfortable.”
Those are the words of an Ethiopian girl working in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
Despite the Kurdistan Region being known as a religious and traditional community, foreign workers are often exposed to injustice and sexual harassment.
Due to hard work conditions and unfair payment, male Arab and Bangladeshi workers often face injustice and disrespect, but the lot of female Ethiopian workers is much worse. They are frequently targeted by rapists and have nowhere to go to complain about their situation.
Mania, a 23-year-old Ethiopian girl with only an aged mother and father, said she came to the Kurdistan Region five years ago.
For the last year, Mania has been working as a servant at the house of a Kurdish family with dual Swedish-Kurdish citizenship. She is happy in the work.
“We did not come here to work for sex. We are scared to take a taxi – the drivers harass us and want to have sex with us, even inside the taxi,” she said.
Mania described the conditions endured by one of her friends who works in another Kurdish household. She said she is obliged to go to sleep after all the family members, usually around 2:00 am, and has to get up earlier than everyone to prepare for the family’s needs.
Mania criticizes the Kurdish community saying that, despite their claim to be religious, they harass and rape servant girls. She compares thewww.Ekurd.net treatment of Ethiopian servants in the Region to a barbaric colonial tradition of rape and harassment with impunity.
The Iraqi Constitution states that the act of rape carries a lifelong prison sentence, but because the Ethiopian girls are not familiar with the police and judiciary, they cannot bring their cases to the court.
When another Ethiopian married servant named Tariya, 27 -years -old, was asked why when Ethiopian girls when raped did not go to police, she replied that they do not know where the police offices are, although they fear to do that.
Tariya also mentioned that because they do not know how to read Kurdish, she and her friends are unable to take the registration numbers of the taxi drivers who harass them.
Tariya said that taxi drivers are not the only people who annoy them, but that private cars often stop in front of them in the street and harass them.
Four years ago, Tariya got the chance to work with Americans. She says she has never been harassed by anybody at work, but that friends of hers who are less fortunate are frequently harassed and raped.
Tariya further explained that the simplest human rights are denied to female foreign workers in the Kurdistan Region, such as having a mobile phone, being able to use a shower, and being allowed time off work.
Rita, another Ethiopian servant working in a Kurdish household, said that while she was working, she was attacked by the son of the family. He tore her trousers apart in his attempt to rape her.
Rita said that she escaped outside and contacted the police, but she was told that she had to stay in that house until her contract was finished.
Rita further said that when she and her friends go to a park or public place, they face harassment by youths and others because they have no support in the Kurdistan Region.
By Reband Khoshnaw. Published by Ekurd.net in cooperation with Basnews.
http://quatero.net/archives/27070
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