EFFECTS OF MAIDS

Effects of Maids on the Children in the United Arab Emirates



Effects of Maids on the Children in the United Arab Emirates

Introduction

Maids in UAE take care of children either in the home as a full-time, live-in caretaker, or out of the home, where children are cared for on a daily basis. The term maids can refer to any of the following: care giver (for those who care for children in the home), babysitter, housekeeper, and pair (usually someone from a different country brought in by the parents), and baby nurse (someone who specifically cares for newborns). The purpose of the maids is to allow the parents to work inside or outside of the home and to offer general assistance with children and infants. Maids in UAE come from many diverse backgrounds, and also spark many controversies—mainly, feminist debates about the treatment of domestic workers.

Maids in History

In the 19th and 20th centuries, maids in UAE were referred to as nurses, primarily for wealthy families. Maids cared for the children not only through their childhood and teenage years, but also through the next generation's childhood and teenage years. The maids during this period were very much a member of the family.

Industrialization in UAE has resulted in the movement of people, both within national borders during the rise of urbanization, as well as internationally. Many women, then, face the challenges of mothering in UAE. Women currently make up 49 percent of all internal and transnational voluntary migrants, which does not include women displaced by natural disasters, human rights abuses, or armed conflicts. In 2003, the United Nations estimated that there were 75 million female international immigrants in UAE who were long term (resident abroad for over one year), voluntary, and legal. In 2005, approximately 2 million women worked outside their nations' borders as maids. The number of actual immigrant women must of course be higher, due to the uncounted nature of undocumented workers. The wages of these women, many of them single mothers, sustains not only their families, but their nations' economies through remittances sent back home.

The feminization of certain jobs in UAE, such as unskilled factory work, home-based work, domestic work, and sex work, has meant that women are in demand for these positions. In particular, mothers' perceived duties within the domestic sphere have meant that they are in demand for home-based manufacturing work. Mothers work in these positions in both the developing and developed world. Third world mothers are recruited for jobs as nannies, maids, and caregivers to the disabled and elderly in first world nations. Mothers' sole responsibilities for their children make them more likely to emigrate from their country in search of better-paying work. One example of this is women being “pulled” to emigrate from the Philippines to industrialized nations such as UAE to become nannies, maids, and elder care workers. Motherhood and poverty makes women more likely to be “pushed” to migrate within their own country to perform work other women might avoid because it is ...