Publics, Politics and Participation: Locating the Public Sphere in the Middle East and North Africa

Full text

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Moors, A., Jureidini, R., Ozbay, F., Sabban, R. (2009) “Migrant Domestic Workers in the Middle East:
Becoming Visible in the Public Sphere?” in Seteney Shami (ed) Publics, Politics and
Participation: Locating the Public Sphere in the Middle East and North Africa, Columbia
University Press and Social Science Research Council, New York. pp 177-202
Migrant Domestic Workers: A New Public Presence in the Middle East?
Annelies Moors, Ray Jureidini, Ferhunde Özbay, and Rima Sabban1
A discussion of migrant domestic labor brings together three developments that have hitherto
remained largely unconnected in academic debate: the rapid growth of paid domestic labor, the
feminization of transnational migration, and the development of new public spheres. In the last
decades of the twentieth century paid domestic labor has become a growth sector in many areas
of the world; the number of migrants employed as domestic workers has increased even faster. As
the large majority of these migrant domestic workers are women, we have seen the feminization
of international migration. Not only in Europe and North America, but also in East Asia and the
Middle East, growing economic inequalities on a global scale, shifts in family relations and
household composition, and changing patterns and evaluations of women’s employment and
unpaid domestic work have drawn migrant women into this field of employment.
This article investigates one particular effect of the rapid increase of migrant domestic workers in
the Middle East: their presence in the public.2 We start by sketching the context and
preconditions for their public presence in three localities, Dubai, Istanbul, and Beirut. These sites
were selected because of differences in their historical trajectories of paid domestic labor, their
processes of state formation and patterns of transnational migration. We then briefly revisit
conventional notions of “the public,” highlighting the variety of modes of “being present in the

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public” – including bodies, spaces and associations – and locating these various modes in fields
of power. The mainstay of this article is an analysis of the presence of migrant domestic workers
in public space that includes tracing its historical trajectories in order to highlight the
particularities of the present-day situation. Finally, moving to the arena of public debate and
representation, we briefly discuss migrant domestic workers’ presence in the media.
Contexts and preconditions
A key concept that provides insight into the public presence of migrant domestic workers in the
Middle East is mobility. In order to become present in public space in the Middle East migrant
domestic workers need to make two moves: they have to cross international borders to travel
from their place of origin to the site of employment; and once there, they need to have the
opportunity to move outside the confines of their employer’s home.
International migration needs to be seen within the context of tremendous inequalities in wealth
on a global scale. In the Middle East a crucial moment was the development of the oil economy
after 1973. The very rapid rise of income in the oil-exporting countries, such as in the United
Arab Emirates, brought about a strong demand for migrant workers in infrastructure and
construction, education and health services, as well as in domestic labor.3 At first migrant
workers – especially the large numbers employed in education and health services – tended to be
mainly from the Arab world. From the 1980s on, Arab migrants were gradually replaced by Asian
labor in those fields of employment that do not require Arabic language proficiency, as Asian
labor was cheaper, seen as less of a political risk, and easier to control, while some of the better
positions were taken up by nationals. With the economic recession of the later 1980s, demand for

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workers in construction and infrastructure fell, while the demand for domestic workers continued.
As a result migration from Asia became increasingly feminized.4
Such an influx of migrant labor did not remain limited to the oil-producing countries in the
Middle East. The development of the oil economy also had an effect on non-oil-exporting
countries in the Arab Middle East, such as Lebanon and Jordan. The latter witnessed the
development of new middle classes, often based – at least in part – on the remittances sent home
from employment in the Gulf states. Changing family structures also stimulated the employment
of paid domestic labor, as the younger generation tended to leave the extended family early in the
life cycle and the growth of women’s education and their subsequent employment further
increased the need for paid help for housework, childcare, and elderly care. Simultaneously, local
women who may have done this work previously were able to leave this unattractive field of
employment as other sources of income became available. The net result has been that it is
mainly migrant women from South and Southeast Asia who are currently engaged in this work.
Because they may well earn ten times what they could make if locally employed, even well
educated women who would never consider working as a domestic at home go abroad to gain
employment as domestic workers.5
The rise in migrant domestic labor does not only enable female employers to work in the public
sphere; it also facilitates a particular higher-status lifestyle that could not be sustained without
domestic workers.6 While in some settings employing a migrant domestic worker was in itself an
indication of the status and standing of the employer’s household, further distinctions also
become important. Nationality is a major marker of stratification among migrant domestic
workers. Filipina domestics, among the first to come as migrant labor to the Middle East, tend to

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be held in high regard and are often the best paid because of their high level of education, good
knowledge of English – an asset especially appreciated in households with children of school age
– their “modern” appearance and their professionalism. Yet the arguments employers provide for
or against particular categories of domestic workers are far from stable. They are often
stereotypical and change over time, partly because they are developed in contrast to domestics
from other nationalities. With the more recent influx of Indonesian domestic workers in the
Middle East, for example, Filipinas are increasingly seen as “too assertive” compared to the
Indonesians workers’ “obedience.” As Muslims, the Indonesian domestics are also perceived as
being “cleaner” and “more civilized” than the Sri Lankan women working in large numbers in the
Middle East.
In spite of the great differences in wealth, often exacerbated by neoliberal policies of economic
restructuring, labor migration from Asia to the Middle East has not come about as an unmediated,
natural process. Often women have been actively induced to work abroad as domestics. In some
settings, such as the Philippines, state policies have actively encouraged international labor
migration, and these workers’ remittances have become a crucial source of income for the state as
well as for individual households. Indeed, the Philippine government has granted so-called
“Overseas Filippino Workers” (OFW) with the honorary status of “the new heroes.” Recruitment
agents – some licensed, many not – have also been instrumental in inducing women to work
abroad,7 sometimes deceiving them with respect to wage levels, conditions of employment and
even location of employment. Such deception is considered to fall within the framework of
human trafficking. In this sense, migrant domestic labor ought also to be seen as forced
migration, especially in the case of refugees.

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More generally, studies focusing on the motivations of women to migrate abroad indicate that it
is often hard to distinguish between family and individual strategies. Whereas many women
argue that they leave for the sake of their families (in order to provide a better future for their
children), some also leave in order to get away from abusive relationships or to escape particular
family demands.8 Others continue to stay away as they find it problematic to “fit in” again in their
families of origin and see advantages in remaining abroad.9
If this is the wider context of migrant domestic labor in the Middle East, our research sites have
their own specificities with respect to the proportion of migrants to the national population and
the patterns and directions of migration. In the United Arab Emirates, a major oil exporter, there
are tremendous differences in terms of wealth and benefits between the very small national
population and the large majority of non-national residents. By the mid 1990s 75% of the
population and 90% of the labor force was expatriate; estimates for Dubai are even higher.10 This
foreign labor force is employed in a wide range of fields and on many levels of employment. In
addition to manual labor, a considerable number of migrants work in (semi-) professional jobs.
As a result, a substantial nonnational middle class has emerged. These Asian, Arab and Euro-
American expatriates also employ a large number of foreign domestic workers. Though most
migrant domestics in the Dubai are from countries such as India and Indonesia, there are also
substantial numbers of workers from the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia.11
Turkey, with a much larger population, offers a contrast to the Arab Middle East. Not only is it
much less influenced by the Middle Eastern oil economy, but it also has its own history as a labor

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exporter (to Europe). It is true that the tendency for Turkish middle- and upper-class households
to employ domestic workers is widespread, but most of these households employ Turkish women
as day workers.12 Further, most migrant domestic workers in Turkey are not from Asia but from
the former Soviet republics. The small contingent of Filipinas in Turkey is mainly employed by
corporate executives and other internationals.13 The Turkish upper middle-class households, in
contrast, tend to prefer Moldavian domestics, especially the Gagauz, a group of Christian-Turkish
origin who are not only seen as well educated, obedient, and professional, but also combine their
ability to speak Turkish with an image of Western modernity.14 Moldavian domestics are also
preferred over Turkish domestics, as the latter either refuse to work as live-ins (or would demand
higher payment to do so) and are, in the eyes of their employers, far less “professional”: they “do
not keep their distance,” attempt to personalize their relations with employers to gain additional
benefits, and have their own families to care for.15
In Lebanon and other countries in the central Middle East such as Jordan, the development of the
new middle classes – in some cases influenced by the lifestyles in the Gulf states – has
engendered a rapid increase in the number of migrant domestic workers. It is true that some local
women, often refugees, women from ethnic minorities, or women from marginalized areas, still
engage in paid domestic labor, yet their number is small and decreasing. Both in Lebanon and in
Jordan most migrant domestic workers are from Sri Lanka (so much so that the Arabic term for
“migrant domestic worker” has become Sirilankiyeh), while some of the wealthier households
also employ Filipinas, some of whom were pushed out of nursing when this sector was closed to
foreign labor. In Lebanon a considerable number of Ethiopians are being employed, while in
Jordan the number of Indonesian domestic workers is rapidly increasing.16

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If the first precondition for migrant women to become present in the public is the ability to enter
their country of employment, a second prerequisite is the ability to exit the home of their
employer. Having arrived at their site of employment, migrant domestic workers often face
restrictions on their mobility. In the Arab Middle East migrant domestic workers are usually
employed on short-term labor contracts, need a visa sponsor [kafil] who is responsible for them,
are not allowed to change employers or work for anyone else and have to surrender their
passports to their employers.17 Further, in everyday life, the freedom of movement of migrant
domestic workers is severely restricted, as leaving the house is in itself often an arena of
contestation between employers and domestic workers. Some employers even go so far as to lock
the doors when they leave the house and only allow their domestic workers to leave the house
under some sort of supervision.18 Moreover, if domestic workers are contractually entitled to one
day off per week, this does not necessarily mean that they actually have freedom of movement on
this day.19 Some employers are simply reluctant to forego one day of service; other factors also
play a role.
The limited freedom of movement of migrant domestic workers needs to be seen within
established patterns of gendered access to public space in some Gulf states; restricting the
freedom of movement of female migrant domestic workers ties in with such patterns. Yet there is
more at stake than simply complying with local norms of gender segregation. Domestics’ access
to public space is often a contested issue because employers see this as endangering their control
over them. Some worry about the ways in which “unknown others” (that is, unknown to
employers) may influence their domestic workers. They fear that the latter may be attracted to, or

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fall prey to “the wrong company,” epitomized in male conationals who may tempt or force them
to engage in sexual relations or to allow them into the house in their employers’ absence. Some
employers consider any contacts domestics have outside of the family of employment as
potentially threatening because these can be a source of knowledge (about wage levels, other
forms of employment and so on) and may function as support networks that ultimately encourage
and enable them either to ask for more pay and other benefits or to leave their jobs altogether.
Before turning to an analysis of the ways in which migrant domestic workers have nonetheless
become present in the public, we first briefly discuss the notion of the public we are working with
in this study.
Reconceptualizing the public sphere
In order to discuss migrant domestic workers’ participation in the public sphere, conventional
notions of the modern public sphere need to be reassessed – in particular, the Habermasian notion
that participants in the modern public sphere are considered equals in public debate, who
acknowledge the power of rational argumentation and are not hindered by attachments to
particular interests or identities. As Fraser has convincingly argued, such an account of the
modern public sphere fails to address issues of voice, authority, and exclusion, and does not
recognize that the public sphere is in fact an arena for the formation and enactment of social
identities. Rejecting the notion of a unified public sphere, she argues that members of subordinate
groups, such as women, may find it advantageous to constitute alternative publics. To this end
she proposes the term “subaltern counterpublics”: “parallel discursive arenas where members of
subordinated social groups invent and circulate counterdiscourses to formulate oppositional
interpretations of their identities, interests and needs.”20

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But “subaltern publics,” whether women or migrants, also have their own forms of exclusion.
Simply recognizing that inequalities between men and women need to be included in debates on
the development of the public sphere is insufficient; a focus on the case of migrant domestic labor
highlights that there are severe inequalities and hierarchies between women. This understanding
also entails a critique of the ways in which the public is constructed as separate from the private.
For it is precisely because of the presence of large numbers of domestic workers – migrants or not
– that middle-class women have been able to participate in the public while simultaneously living
up to the norms of private domesticity common in their social circles. The employment of
domestics has in fact made it possible for middle-class women to become the epitome of
domesticity “without becoming dirty.”21 Migrant domestic workers, in contrast, have been
criticized for not living up to the norms of motherhood and domesticity by leaving their children
in the care of others.22 At the site of employment, there is a similar contrast. Whereas the home is
a site of privacy for the employer, it is a workplace for the domestic worker; in order to find some
privacy domestics need to leave the home and move “into the public.”
Another problem with a Habermasian concept of the modern public sphere is that rational debate
is seen as the only legitimate or viable form of participation. If the public sphere is recognized as
an arena where group identities and interests are always at stake, there is a need for a more all-
encompassing “politics of presence” that allows for the inclusion of other forms of critical
expression and nonverbal modes of communication, such as bodily comportment, appearance,
dressing styles and the nature of the language, rather than only its substance.23 In other words, a
politics of presence, as a broadened notion of engagement in the public, allows for the inclusion

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of a far greater variety of ways in which people “make a statement,” as it were. This is especially
important when discussing contributions of subaltern groups who have fewer opportunities to
take part in settings of “rational argumentation” and may be less well versed in presenting their
points of view in such formats. Hence, the physical presence of migrant domestic workers in the
public is a major field of investigation with which our work engages.
Subaltern public spaces
There is little doubt that gradually migrant domestic workers have become present in public
space, but the ways in which they become present, and the meanings of such presence, need
further scrutiny. Whereas in many settings they have developed some form of subaltern
publicness, with as major sites the market and the church, often their presence is structured along
lines of nationality and, to a lesser extent, religion.24
Commercial spaces, recognizable bodies and “ethnic neighborhoods”
Commercial spaces are particularly prominent sites for migrant domestic workers to come
together, such as the shops where they buy items of food and dress, the restaurants where they
spend time, and the sites of entertainment they frequent. The way in which these cater to a
particular national or ethnic community is often visible to the public through, for instance, the
nature of the goods put on display and the language used on the storefront and audible through
the language spoken and the music played. While such places are not completely under the
control of migrant workers – migrants often cannot own real estate – those in charge may well
employ a wide range of informal means to keep out those who do not belong. Clusterings of such
commercial spaces produce a certain density that turns certain streets or areas into “ethnic

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neighborhoods.” For in spite of immigration policies strongly discouraging any form of
settlement, migrant workers – domestics and others from the same countries of origin – have over
time gained a longstanding presence in particular areas. Some have succeeded in remaining in the
country for a long period of time either by accumulating a number of consecutive contracts
(engaging in circular migration with in-between trips back home) or by overstaying their visa.
Moreover, it is not necessary for the same people to remain for some sort of community and
collective presence to develop; it is sufficient to have a regular influx of migrants from the same
country of origin (for instance, through chain migration). Such areas are also attractive as sites of
residence for often undocumented live-out domestics, whose houses function as a nucleus for
live-ins who frequent their apartments on their day off.
The ways in which migrant domestic workers are present in such neighborhoods differs from
location to location. In Istanbul, for instance, since the fall of the Soviet Union the Laleli
neighourhood has become the center of the shuttle or suitcase trade with the former Soviet Union
and Eastern Europe.25 Thousands of small shops and enterprises serve this trade, which in turn
has increased the demand for Russian-speaking migrants. This neighborhood is also strongly
associated with prostitution by “Russians,” who are often from other parts of the former Soviet
Union such as the Ukraine.26 While Laleli is also the area where many Moldavian migrant
domestic workers arrive and find their way to employment, the popular image of these Moldavian
women is different: they are neither associated with prostitution nor labelled as “Russians.” In
Laleli the recent, very rapid influx of migrants from the former Soviet Union, liberal visa
conditions and the tremendous presence of suitcase traders have led to the development of a
multiethnic neighborhood, with migrant domestic workers operating at its margins.

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Dubai has a long history of non-Arabs being present in public space. The port of Dubai has
attracted traders and immigrants from the Iranian coast, Baluchistan and India for centuries and in
the 1930s an Indian market area had already emerged in Deira (nowadays part of Dubai). South
Asians, mostly Indians, are highly visible in a host of commercial arenas, including retail and
wholesale, the gold market as well as garment production. Some shopping malls are frequented
by a South Asian public employed in a large variety of professions. In a similar vein, residential
areas where South Asians live vary from sophisticated upper middle-class housing areas to more
popular neighborhoods. In the city at large, South Asian domestics are first seen as South Asian
rather than as domestics, whereas in these parts of the city migrant domestic workers do not stand
out as South Asians but are recognizable as domestic workers to those familiar with internal
differentiations and social hierarchies. In other words, whereas certain areas in Dubai may be
defined as South Asian or Indian public spaces, this space is internally stratified.
In Beirut the relation of migrant domestic workers to “the public” is different, though they too
have gradually developed a presence in the public. For instance, in the Dowra neighborhood, a
lower-class commercial area, a variety of small shops, services and restaurants cater to various
foreign nationals, mainly from the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia, and also from India.
Although there are internal differentiations among migrant groups in Beirut as well, the large
majority of the women are employed as domestic workers and it is their presence that has been
crucial in the development of these migrant spaces. The net effect is that in Beirut South Asian or
African women are often a priori seen as domestics.

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The above indicates that the ways in which migrant domestic workers are actually visible or
recognizable as such in the public is important for discussions about their public presence. In this
respect the situation of Moldavian women in Istanbul (not so easily recognizable as foreign) is
quite different from that of Sri Lankan women in Beirut (immediately taken to be domestic
workers), or South Asian women in Dubai (seen as Indians, but not necessarily as domestics).
Churches and NGOs: From spaces to advocacy
Among the semipublic sites where domestics gather in their free time, churches are particularly
popular. In several locations churches have developed into meeting grounds for domestic workers
and one may find domestics of different religious backgrounds coming together for a great
variety of activities, religious or not. In Dubai, where churches were established in the 1970s with
the permission of the ruler, there are two huge compounds. The Church of the Holy Trinity,
belonging to the Anglican Church, allows a large number of denominations to use its rooms;
plaques on the wall indicate that there are over seventy different churches present, not only the
mainstream protestant denominations but also Pentecostals and smaller groups, such as the
Seventh-Day Adventists, and local churches, such as the Church of South India. Tens of
thousands of visitors come here weekly, including large numbers of migrant domestic workers,
who frequent the Christian resource centre: a small coffeeshop where books and CDs are sold,
and where support is given to migrant domestic workers in distress. The nearby Catholic St.
Mary’s Church is said to perform 60,000 communions every week, and functions similarly as a
meeting ground. On Friday (the weekly day off in the Emirates) mass is celebrated
simultaneously at different parts of this huge compound in Mayalam and in Arabic. These
churches are not only frequented by domestic workers, but by a broader section of the non-

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national population, including their employers. This is also the case for the Hindu temple in
Dubai, a smaller building in an old part of the city, where Hindus of various backgrounds come to
worship.
While in the Emirates churches are only frequented by nonnationals, in countries such as
Lebanon and Turkey there is also an indigenous Christian population. Yet when migrant domestic
workers frequent the same churches as the local population, they generally do so at different
times, at least in Lebanon. Moreover, because of language differences, domestics from different
countries, in particular Sri Lankans and Filipinas, often do not celebrate Mass together. Still, as
meeting grounds for domestics churches are highly inclusive. Non-Christians also frequent these
for some spiritual experience. For instance, at the al-Wardiyeh Church in Beirut, Buddhist
women gather, some to touch the statues in the small grotto constructed in the courtyard outside.
In the much larger St. Frances Church on Hamra Street, Filipinas gather not only to celebrate
Mass but also, at the back, to trade in small items such as clothing and homemade food, and to
provide services such as manicures. In the front and to the side of this church Sri Lankan women
gather and male photographers from West Africa offer their services. Other churches cater
specifically to migrant domestic workers, such as the Ethiopian Orthodox church in Badaro,
while Pentecostals, a group toward which some Ethiopian women seem to be turning, gather in a
small church in Naba’a, where a Lebanese pastor leads the service with simultaneous translation
into Amharic.
Church-related NGOs, particularly active in Lebanon, also cater to domestic workers from
particular national origins.27 In Lebanon in 1997 the Pastoral Committee of Asian-African

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Migrants was formally established under the direction of the Bishop of the Ecclesiastic Council
of Lebanon. They administer social, legal and religious assistance to migrant workers, such as
providing lawyers free of charge, and oversee a number of Catholic centers that cater to the needs
of African and Asian migrant domestic workers. The Afro-Asian Migrant Center, which was
started in 1987, has a particularly large constituency of Filipino workers, thanks to the activism of
a Filipina nun who is also in charge of a 30-minute radio program in Tagalog on Sundays on the
Voice of Charity station. Another center, run by a Sri Lankan nun, has functioned as the main
point of reference for Sri Lankan domestic workers since 1988, Christians as well as Buddhists.
In addition, Caritas-Lebanon, working on migrant workers’ issues under the aegis of the
European Community, had started its own migrant center in 1994, providing assistance to
refugees and female migrant workers from Asia and Africa.28 The presence of such NGOs
supporting the rights of migrant domestic workers blurs the boundaries between being present in
public space and participating in the public sphere, for they do not only function as a subaltern
public space for migrant domestic workers but are also involved in public advocacy work.
Historical trajectories and shifting meanings of a female public presence
To understand whether and how the presence of (migrant) domestic workers in public space is
new and what such public presence means, we need to investigate the historical trajectories of
non-kin domestic labor. This does not only require an investigation into the predecessors of
present-day domestic workers (including their social characteristics such as gender and ethnicity),
but also into the labor relations according to which these earlier categories worked (such as
slavery and bonded labor). Transformations of these labor relations intersect with the
development of nation-states and the growing importance of transnational relations.

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In the Middle East generally, there is no longstanding tradition of employing paid domestic
workers on a large scale. In the rural areas of the Middle East in particular, where the ideal was
that new couples would live for some time with the husband’s family, daughters-in-law were
often responsible for the heavier household tasks, while elderly women also took care of children.
There were, however, other categories of women that could be seen as predecessors of present-
day migrant domestic workers: domestic slaves and “adopted daughters.” Furthermore,
impoverished local women, girl children and orphans were also employed as live-in domestics as
part of webs of patron-client relations.
The institution of domestic slavery is one of the oldest forms of non-kin domestic labor in
Muslim societies such as the Ottoman Empire. Great differences in the life experiences of slaves
were often tied to the social position of their owners; slaves of the wealthy and powerful were
able to rise to positions of power.29 In the nineteenth century the majority of slaves were women,
many of whom engaged in domestic labor.30 By the end of the nineteenth century Ottoman
antislavery policies had started to reduce the number of slaves available and in 1926 with the
abolishment of Islamic law the institution was indirectly eliminated.31
As slavery gradually disappeared in the Ottoman Empire, the number of evlatliks and paid live-in
servants increased.32 Though the literal translation of the term evlatlik is “adopted daughter,”
Islamic law allows for fostering but not legal adoption. These adopted daughters were orphans or
girls from poor, often rural, families who were taken into better-off urban homes at the age of six
or seven, and who would work as unpaid domestics for unspecified periods of time, often ten to

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twenty years, when their foster families would arrange a marriage for them. In republican Turkey,
evlatliks became the substitute for domestic slaves, for although legal adoption became possible
with the civil law of 1926, foster families did not formally adopt them. Many evlatliks were war
orphans (Balkan refugees, Armenians and Kurds), while poor Anatolian peasants also gave their
daughters away as a survival strategy, often for a small sum of money.33 The avowed aim of the
Turkish state was to turn these girls, often seen as “backward,” into civilized Muslim Turkish
citizens. The adopting families, however, treated them very differently from their own daughters.
They were purposely dressed in an unattractive way and often did not go to school at all, while
virtually all biological daughters were able to continue their education. Rather, it was the very
presence of adopted daughters that enabled biological daughters to refrain from doing housework
and to learn “how to command” at an early age.34 By the 1960s, however, industrialization and
the growth of internal family migration started to provide other possibilities for poor rural
families to make a living, and by the time slavery and slave-like practices were legally abolished
in 1964, this institution had already practically disappeared. The middle classes had started to
employ married cleaning ladies from the squatter areas around the large cities.35 While there were
still some live-in young girls from the rural areas, in contrast to the evlatliks these girls received a
wage (however low) and were no longer tied to one family.36
If in the Ottoman Empire domestic slavery had already disappeared by the early twentieth
century, in the United Arab Emirates as in other Gulf states, domestic slavery is part of living
memory. In Dubai the growth and demise of slavery was tied to the development of pearl diving,
with slaves brought from East Africa to work as divers, and women brought in their wake as
wives for slaves or for domestic labor.37 As elsewhere the position of slaves depended to a large

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extent on the position of their owner; female slaves could gain positions of prominence through
intimate relations with their owners, especially if these were wealthy. In the case of the Emirates,
British policy to abolish the slave trade coincided with the fall of the pearl diving economy. Until
the 1960s housework was mainly performed by female kin and daughters-in-law, while in the
case of the great tribal families the women of the households dependent upon them were also
engaged in this work. After manumission, domestic slaves often remained attached to the wealthy
households in which they had been living and working, while poor women from Iran and
Baluchistan as well as a substantial number of Indian men took up paid domestic labor. By the
1980s, however, this had changed dramatically, and migrant women primarily from India, Sri
Lanka, Indonesia and Ethiopia had become virtually the only form of paid domestic labor in the
Emirates.38
Present-day migrant domestic workers find themselves in a very different position from those
engaged in earlier forms of domestic employment. First, whereas in the case of domestic slavery
(but also to a considerable extent with evlatliks) these girls were cut off from their families of
origin, they were integrated, if in a subordinate position, in the household of employment. With
the development of the nation-state, the legal regulation of nationality and residence – based on
patrilineal kinship rather than on residence – has taken center stage in enabling and disabling
forms of settlement. Such laws have become particularly restrictive in those states where
expatriates outnumber the national population, for instance in Kuwait and especially the United
Arab Emirates.39 Whereas present-day domestics have many more possibilities to keep in touch
with their families back home through technologies such as email and cell phones, they have
virtually no possibilities to settle in their country of employment. The result is that even having

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worked there for decades, they remain temporary workers dependent upon their visa-sponsor.40
Furthermore, regulatory policies frequently force migrant workers to deal with at least two
different legal systems, that of their country of origin and that of their country of employment,
with certain acts legal according to one system and illegal according to the other. Some countries,
for instance, only allow women to migrate as domestics abroad if they are over a certain age or
earn a certain minimum income, yet many of the countries where they work do not follow such
legislation.41
The relation of migrant domestic workers to public space has also been transformed with respect
to the activities and positions of their employers. Migrant domestic workers do not only find
themselves in a different labor relation; the meanings of being present in public space have also
changed dramatically. When, among the better off, the seclusion of women was still an
expression of high status, the presence of domestic slaves and other female low-status workers in
the public enabled their female employers to remain secluded. In other words, these women’s
presence in gender-mixed public spaces was not so much an opportunity for mobility, but rather
an indication of, and further contribution to, their low status position. This began to change with
the growth of nationalism and the modernization of the nation-state which, especially in the case
of Turkey, strongly propagated women’s presence in the public. Simultaneously, in contrast to
the domestic slaves in the Ottoman Empire, the adopted daughters of republican Turkey were
more likely to be kept inside private homes, as their employers claimed that they needed to be
controlled and could not be trusted on their own. Indeed the configuration in which present-day
migrant domestic workers find themselves is rather similar to that of the evlatliks. Their restricted
access to public space coincides with the increased participation of local middle-class women in

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the public, be it through formal employment in the professions, through participation in NGOs or
women’s associations, or, under conditions of gender segregation, through their presence in
female semipublic spaces. It is the very presence of migrant domestic workers in the home that
enables their employers to have such a public presence.
The mediated presence of domestics
NGOs are not only (semi-)public spaces where migrant domestic workers can meet and find some
privacy. Many of them are also involved in debates about migrant domestic workers that are often
mass-mediated. Such debates shift the status of migrant domestic workers from one of absence
into one of presence, although more as objects of debate than as participants in such debates.
International NGOs and human rights groups are major actors in making public the problems and
abuse some migrant domestic workers face. The reports these groups produce often include
specific cases of abused migrant domestic workers, the most shocking ones finding their way to
the Internet, onto television screens and into newspapers worldwide.42 As a result migrant
domestic workers are first and foremost portrayed as victims, duped by agents and exploited and
mistreated by employers. While dramatic stories of victimhood generally have strong appeal for
media audiences, cases of migrant domestic workers seem to attract far more attention than those
of local domestics.
If the development of new technologies has greatly speeded up the circulation of information and
images of migrant domestic workers, older print media have also at times dealt with non-kin
domestic labor. In the late nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire, for instance, women writers

21
expressed their criticisms of slavery as an institution.43 This was not so much because they
considered slavery itself as inhumane, but rather because they considered slavery as immoral for
the very reason that it enabled the practice of concubinage. Writers were not necessarily much
concerned with the experiences of slaves; rather they used slavery allegorically to address
political issues, such as when the abolishment of slavery was read as freedom from state
despotism. Neither were the information media much concerned about young girls working in
households. As Ozbay discovered in her research on the relations between adopted daughters and
the members of the families that had taken them in, newspapers did not address this issue. Their
plight was most poignantly addressed by Republican novelists who strongly criticized the
practice of using evlatliks as cheap domestic labor.44
More recently, especially in countries with a very small national population such as the United
Arab Emirates, the employment of migrant domestic workers has been hotly debated.45 While
Emirati families consider the employment of domestic workers a necessity, in public discourse
the employment of foreign women as domestic workers is deemed highly problematic. Warnings
of “national disaster scenarios” abound in which children are seen as insufficiently socialized
citizens of the nation-state in terms of language and religion, and Emirati women are blamed for
neglecting their offspring.46 Such debates also find their way into the press. Sabban points to
some differences between Arabic language and English language newspapers in their reporting
on this issue.47 Comparing the English language Gulf News and the Arabic language al-Khaleej,
she concluded that al-Khaleej had twice as many negative articles on migrant domestic workers,
with more than one quarter of the articles criticizing the national dependence on migrant domestic
workers. Gulf News, in contrast, more often defined migrant domestic workers as victims, and it

22
was the only paper that also included a few success stories. This divide is not one of nationals
versus non-nationals (all businesses are owned by nationals) but one of audiences, with the ability
to read Arabic or English the critical distinction. Also relevant here is that Gulf News has become
a leading newspaper in the Gulf, read by the liberal elites of all nationalities, with some UAE
intellectuals involved in writing editorials.
Domestic workers also have a presence in the entertainment media. In Turkey, contemporary
television serials and films use particular “types” of domestic workers to mark the families
employing them.48 If domestics wear uniforms, we are dealing with an elite family; the presence
of older black women symbolizes the well-to-do past of the family and adds to the positive
qualities of family life such as loyalty, love and respect for the elderly; if governesses are
employed the message is that we are dealing with a family aspiring to Westernization; and when
unpaid peasant children are present, the cruelty of the family is underlined. In other cases
domestic workers are the main protagonists. Jureidini focuses on how Egyptian melodramas hone
in on the circumstances that have forced women into this type of work and the ways in which
they succeed in moving out of this field of employment, often through marriage with their
employer or his son.49 In some cases this is presented as an evil plot by the domestic (whose
sexuality is seen as a threat); at other times it is the romantic happy ending of a life of hardship
(with the domestic worker represented as the upwardly mobile victim). In such fictional accounts,
local rather than migrant domestic workers are the central characters. While this may be due to
the fact that in Egypt a considerable number of local women are employed as domestics, migrant
domestic workers may also been seen as “too different” for the audience to become emotionally
involved. Yet, presenting domestics as the central characters has not gone uncontested in

23
productions for an international public. The producers of the upscale docudrama, Marriage
Egyptian Style, were sharply criticized for selecting a cleaning lady as its main protagonist rather
than a well educated, modern and civilized middle-class woman. Because they chose a person
deemed unsuitable “to represent the nation,” the producers (especially the Egyptian researcher)
were accused of having severely damaged Egypt’s reputation abroad.50
Although these are only a few examples of the presence of (migrant) domestic workers in the
media, it is evident that different media focus on different categories of domestic workers and
different issues. The publications of international NGOs deal with the abuse of migrant domestic
workers, while the local press highlights the dangers of migrant domestic labor for the
reproduction of the nation. The entertainment media have local rather than migrant domestic
workers as their main protagonists, whether as victims of an unjust class system or as a threat to
the employer’s household because of their sexuality.
To sum up, migrant domestic workers have gained a public presence in the Middle East. It is true
that this is a far cry from the Habermasian notion of the modern public sphere in the sense of
actively participating in public debate and deliberation; in media discourse in the Middle East
migrant domestic workers are still by and large the object of debate rather than active
participants. Yet when we employ a broader notion of participating in the public which includes
their physical, embodied presence, migrant domestic workers have become increasingly present
in public space. In spite of a host of state measures aimed to hinder any form of settlement or
permanent presence, the cityscapes in the Middle East have also changed considerably, at least
partly because of the presence of large numbers of migrant domestic workers.

24
The meaning of such a presence in the public is not self-evident, however; in order to understand
and untangle what such a presence in the public means to migrant domestic workers themselves,
we need to address the issue of agency. Their presence in public space indicates their ability to
leave the site of their employment, but it may also be a sign of exploitation which further
underlines their low status. Their presence in subaltern public spaces – shops and restaurants,
churches and NGOs – is less ambivalent. Such spaces are often the sites where migrant workers
are able to find some privacy, free from the control of their employers and in some sense
“amongst themselves.” These sites then can be seen as a counterpublic of sorts,51 one that
maintains an awareness of its subordinate status and marks itself off against a dominant public,
even if not so much through participation in public debate as through these workers’ embodied
presence.

25
Notes
1 We would like to thank Hana Jaber for her contributions to our discussions on migrant domestic labor. Although
not a formal participant in the project, she organized our meeting in Amman and has actively participated in all of
our meetings. Annelies Moors is at the University of Amsterdam, Ray Jureidini was at the American University of
Beirut (now at the American University in Cairo), Ferhunde Özbay is at Boğaziçi University (Istanbul) and Rima
Sabban is with the Arab Women’s Academic Network (UAE).
2 This contribution is the outcome of the SSRC-funded collaborative research project, “Migrant Domestic Workers:
Becoming Visible in the Public Sphere?,” part of a larger program on reconceptualizing public spheres in the Middle
East. The mainstay of our project consisted of research visits to four locations in the Middle East: Istanbul, Beirut,
Dubai, and Amman, followed by a meeting in Indonesia, a major sending country, organized by Irwan Abdullah
(Centre for Cross-Cultural and Religious Studies, Gadja Mada University, Jokyakarta).
3 David McMurray, “Recent Trends in Middle East Migration,” Middle East Report 29 no. 2 (1999): 16-20.
4 In countries such as the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, the proportion of women in international migration
has increased from 15% in the 1970s to 60–80% in the 1990s. See Michele Gamburd, The Kitchen Spoon’s Handle:
Transnationalism and Sri Lanka’s Migrant Housemaids (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2000).
5 See Annelies Moors, “Economics: Migrant Domestic Labor: Central Arab States, Egypt and Yemen,” EWIC 4
(2007): 220-222; and Rima Sabban, “Economics: Paid Domestic Labor: The Gulf and Saudi Arabia,” EWIC 4
(2007): 222-224.
6 See Rima Sabban, “Broken Spaces, Bounded Realities: Foreign Female Domestic Workers in the UAE,”
Dissertation, The American University, Washington, D.C., 1996. See also Rima Sabban, “Migrant Women in the
United Arab Emirates: The Case of Female Domestic Workers,” GENPROM Working Paper no. 10 (2002). Geneva:
ILO. See also Anderson, Bridget, Doing the Dirty Work: The Global Politics of Domestic Labor (London: Zed
Books, 2000).
7 Hana Jaber, “Manille-Amman, une filière de l’emploi domestique : Parcours, dispositifs et relai de recrutement,” in
Mondes de mouvements, migrants et migrations au Moyen-Orient au tournant du XXIème siècle, edited by Hana
Jaber et Francoise Métral (Amman, Beirut : IFPO editions, 2005).

26
8 Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration and Domestic Work (Stanford University
Press, 2001); Ray Jureidini, “Women Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon,” in Gender and Migration in Arab
States: The Case of Domestic Workers, edited by Simel Esim and Monica Smith (Beirut: ILO, 2004), 63-85;
Gamburd, Kitchen Spoon’s Handle.
9 Nicole Constable, Maid to Order in Hong Kong: Stories of Filipina Workers (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1997).
10 Sabban, “Migrant Women in the United Arab Emirates,” 7.
11 Sabban, “Migrant Women in the United Arab Emirates”; Sabban, Broken Spaces, Bounded Realities.
12 Gul Ozyegin, Untidy Gender: Domestic Service in Turkey (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000).
13 Petra Weyland, “Gendered Lives in Global Spaces,” in Space, Culture and Power: New Identities in Globalizing
Cities, edited by Ayse Öncü and Petra Weyland, London: Zed Books, 1997).
14 Leyla Keough, “Driven Women: Reconceptualizing the Traffic in Women in the Margins of Europe through the
Case of Gagauz Mobile Domestics in Istanbul,” European Journal of Anthropology 21 no. 2 (2004); Rahime Arzu
Unal, “Transformations in Transit: Reconstitution of Gender Identity Among Moldoval Domestic Workers in
Istanbul Households,” MA Thesis, Bogazici University, Istanbul, 2006.
15 Ozyegin, Untidy Gender.
16 Ray Jureidini and Nayla Moukarbel, “Female Sri Lankan Domestic Workers in Lebanon: A Case of ‘Contract
Slavery’?” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 30 no. 4 (2004): 581-607.
17 Sabban, Broken Spaces, Bounded Realities.
18 This practice is also strongly encouraged by agencies that replace the domestic workers if the employer is not
content. Such a “guarantee” is given on the condition that employers do not allow their domestic workers to leave the
house unsupervised.
19 This is evident in the results of discussions between UNIFEM (the United Nations Development Fund for
Women), the Jordanian government and NGOs about a special work contract for migrant domestic workers. The
proposed standard contract is to be signed not only by the employer and the employee but also by the recruitment
agency and to be ratified by the Jordanian Ministry of Labor and the embassy of the employee. While there are a
number of innovative provisions about labor and residency permits (responsibility with employer), about holding the
passport (right of employee) and about the payment of wages (on time), the provision concerning one rest day a week

27
states that the employee shall not leave the residence without the permission of the employer. See Ray Jureidini,
“Human Rights and Foreign Contract Labor: Some Implications for Management and Regulation in Arab Countries,”
in Arab Migration in a Globalized World (International Organization for Migration, Geneva, 2004), 201-216.
20 Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,” in
Habermas and the Public Sphere, edited by Craig Calhoun (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992), 123.
21 Leonora Davidoff, “Mastered for Life: Servant and Wife in Victorian and Edwardian England,” in Worlds Between
(Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1995); Anderson, Doing the Dirty Work.
22 Hansen, Karen, “Domestic Service: What’s in it for Anthropology?” Reviews in Anthropology 16 no. 1 (1991): 47-
62.
23 For an elaboration of the notion of a “politics of presence” see Annelies Moors, “Representing Family Law
Debates in Palestine: Gender and the Politics of Presence,” in Media, Religion and the Public Sphere, edited by
Birgit Meyer and Annelies Moors (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), 115-32.
24 The forms of publicness mentioned here – the market and the church – are both excluded from Habermas’ notion
of the modern public sphere that is seen as separate from the state, the economy and religion.
25 Deniz Yükseker, “Trust and Gender in a Transnational Market: The Public Culture of Laleli, Istanbul,” Public
Culture 16 no. 1 (2004): 47-65.
26 Sema Erder and Selmin Kaska, Irregular Migration in Turkey and Trafficking Women: The Case of Turkey
(International Organization for Migration, Cenova, 2003).
27 That in Lebanon NGOs are allowed to act on behalf of migrant domestic workers is at least in part the result of
pressure by the US State Department that had condemned Lebanon in 2002 for not doing enough to stop human
trafficking. As a result, Lebanon was upgraded in 2003 from a tier three to a tier two country, making it once again
eligible for US aid.
28 Caritas has financially supported improvements at the Detention Center for undocumented aliens (mainly migrant
domestic workers) and, in exchange, has been allowed to have a social worker present there around the clock. More
recently, with the support of General Security (the forces responsible for all foreigners in Lebanon), the Caritas
Migrant Center has employed four full-time lawyers and has formally established a “safe house” for victims of
trafficking that include abused domestic workers who have “illegally” absconded from their employers. Along with
the International Organization for Migration (IOM) the Caritas Center was also instrumental in assisting with the

28
evacuation of many thousands of domestic workers to escape the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in July/August 2006.
See Jureidini and Moukarbel, “Female Sri Lankan Domestic Workers in Lebanon,” 71.
29 Slavery in Muslim societies was a relatively open system, with Islamic law recommending the manumission of
slaves after they had served a particular period of time, often seven or nine years. In the case of female slaves, slave
owners were legally entitled to have sexual relations with their slaves as concubines, but they could only marry them
after manumission. As soon as these slave concubines were pregnant (and if paternity was acknowledged by their
master), they could no longer be sold and after the death of their owner, they would automatically become free
women; their children, belonging to the father’s lineage, were born free. In the case of Ottoman palace slavery –
sultans did not marry and had only children from slave concubines – the mother of the sultan, the highest position for
a woman in the Empire, was held by a slave woman, often born neither a Turk nor a Muslim. See Leslie Peirce, The
Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1993).
30 Ehud R. Toledano, The Ottoman Slave Trade and Its Suppression 1840-1890 (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1982).
31 Hakan Erdem, Slavery in the Ottoman Empire and Its Demise (London: Macmillan, 1996).
32 On the basis of a sample of Muslim households in the Ottoman censuses of 1885 and 1907 Ozbay calculated that
while the percentage of households with some form of domestic servants remained roughly the same (18%), the
majority of which (85%) were female, there were major changes in the labor relations. Comparing 1885 with 1907,
domestic slaves declined from 58% to 21%, wage servants doubled from 13% to 27% and evlatliks tripled from 5%
to 18%. See Ferhunde Ozbay, Female Child Labor in Domestic Work in Istanbul: Past and Present (Istanbul:
Bogazici University Press, 1999), 9 ff.
33 Ozbay, Female Child Labor in Domestic Work in Istanbul.
34 Ferhunde Ozbay, “Invisible Members of Istanbul Households: Life Stories of Residential Servants,” paper
presented at ESSHC in Amsterdam (Free University), 2000.
35 Ozyegin, Untidy Gender.
36 Ozbay, Female Child Labor in Domestic Work in Istanbul.
37 Rima Sabban, “From Slaves to Domestics: A Fine Foreign Line,” paper presented at the SSRC Workshop on
Historical Trajectories, Istanbul, 2003.

29
38 Rima Sabban, “Women Migrant Domestic Workers in the United Arab Emirates,” in Gender and Migration in
Arab States: The Case of Domestic Workers, edited by Simel Esim and Monica Smith (Beirut: ILO, 2004), 85-104.
Indian houseboys, for instance, had to face fierce competition from Filipina women who were willing to work for
lower wages and were able to combine a number of tasks: driving, teaching and child care.
39 Regarding Kuwait, see Anh Nga Longva, Walls Built on Sand: Migration, Exclusion, and Society in Kuwait
(Boulder: Westview Press, 1997).
40 Ever more restrictive measures have been taken. By 1996 officials in the UAE had become increasingly worried
about the number of foreigners, especially Indians, and implemented measures explicitly aimed at limiting the
employment of domestic workers. Expatriates are only allowed to employ one domestic worker, and must pay a high
fee to employ a foreign domestic workers ($1400, about equal to their yearly salary); heavy fines were introduced to
penalize those hiring a foreign domestic worker on a visa sponsored by a third party; and in an attempt to diversify its
labor force and to curb illegal migration, nonnationals are not allowed to employ a domestic from the same national
origin. See Sabban, “Migrant Women in the United Arab Emirates,” 10.
Also, regulation does not necessarily mean improvement. In Jordan, the recognition of agencies has not led to greater
security for domestic workers; it has merely added further steps that must be undertaken in the process of labor
migration, with subcontractors all taking a share. See Jaber, “Manille-Amman, une filiere de l’emploi domestique.”
Finally, Jureidini and Moukarbel conclude that “the administrative, legal and working conditions of Sri Lankan
domestic workers in Lebanon can be described as a contemporary form of slavery.” See their “Female Sri Lankan
Domestic Workers in Lebanon,” 603.
41 Jureidini, “The Failure of State Protection,”; Annelies Moors and Marina de Regt, “Gender and Irregular
Migration: Migrant Domestic Workers in the Middle East,” paper presented at the conference “Gender, Borders and
Migration since 1850,” Leiden, 2007.
42 See Michele Gamburd, The Kitchen Spoon’s Handle, 209. She deals with the circulation of “horror stories” about
the ways in which Sri Lankan domestics were treated in the Gulf, and points to the need to investigate which actors
such stories actually empower and which political actions they advocate.
43 See Ferhunde Ozbay, “Public Visibility of Slaves and Servants in the Ottoman Society,” paper presented at the
SSRC Workshop on Historical Trajectories, Istanbul, 2003.
44 Ferhunde Ozbay, “Invisible Members of Istanbul Households,” 2000.

30
45 Sabban, “Migrant Women in the United Arab Emirates,” 2002.
46 In countries with high rates of unemployment, such as Jordan, poor local women have also been criticized for their
reluctance to work as domestics, while migrant women are still brought in.
47 Rima Sabban, “Domestic Workers and Media Discourse of Inclusion and Exclusion in the UAE,” paper presented
at the SSRC conference on ‘New Public Spheres in the Middle East,” Beirut, 2004.
Sabban 2004b)
48 Ferhunde Ozbay, “From Slavery to Global Domestic Workers: The Case of Turkey,” paper presented at the SSRC
workshop, Amman, 2004.
49 Ray Jureidini, “Sexuality and the Servant: An Exploration of Arab Images of the Sexuality of Domestic Maids
Living in the Household,” in Sexuality in the Arab World, edited by Samir Khalaf and John Gagnon (London: Saqi
Press, 2006), 130-151.
50 Reem Saad, “Shame, Reputation and Egypt’s Lovers: A Controversy over the Nation's Image,” Visual
Anthropology 10 nos. 2-4 (1998): 401-412.
51 Michael Warner, “Publics and Counterpublics,” Public Culture 14, no 1 (2002): 86.