In November 2009, a Filipina worker came to our offices at Kav LaOved (Worker’s Hotline) to talk. She is finding it hard. She has not had a proper night's sleep for four years. She shares her bed with a restless, elderly blind woman. The old lady sleeps fitfully, she tosses and turns, keeps asking what the time is, wants to go to the lavatory, groans, asks for water. Every morning after breakfast, the old lady falls asleep in her arm chair and the caregiver has the house work to do. After lunch the old lady dozes in bed and the caregiver goes to the pharmacy at the local clinic to bring her medication. The caregiver cries for no apparent reason and asks the old lady's daughter how she can help the old lady to sleep soundly at night. The daughter promises to find out, the doctor recommends sleeping tablets, but these are only effective for two hours. After four years, the caregiver sees the family doctor and is prescribed sedatives. She is irritable, cannot concentrate, has difficulty breathing, suffers dizzy spells. The social worker on a routine visit cannot see anything out of the ordinary. She writes in her report: the worker (caregiver) complains that she does not sleep at night. 

The caregiver was recently admitted to Abarbanel mental hospital. She has no history of mental illness. She will soon be sent home because she has been declared unable to continue to work as a caregiver. She is not the first migrant worker to have broken down and be admitted to a mental hospital or to receive mental health treatment due to unreasonable or particularly tough working conditions. Dr. Estrella-Gust, DP, (1999) from the Philippines writes in her article on the psychological and social price paid by the migrant workers from her country. Apparently, there is no problem. The Philippine government enjoys billions of dollars in income sent each year by migrant workers to their families. The migrant workers' children can go to school, enjoy fairly affluent lives and medical treatment. However, their families and others close to them have little idea about the difficult working conditions, exploitation and humiliation to which migrant workers are exposed. 

Dr. Estrella-Gust reports about interviews conducted in London in 1999 with 755 migrant workers who left their jobs because of improper treatment. There were cases of exploitation that were almost basic human rights’ violations and violations of their workers’ rights. The list includes: threats, insults and shouting (88%), physical abuse and beatings (38.13%), sexual harassment or rape (10.93%), 16-20 hour working days (17%), withholding pay (55%), refusal to allow days off or to celebrate holidays (90%), withholding passports (62%), confinement to the house (35%). the average wage for the sample was $162, which is lower than the minimum wage. The investigator noted a great many cases of depression, psychosis and neurosis. She notes that the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) reports of two fresh cases of mental breakdown each month. There are also reports of a relatively high number of migrant workers returning home following a mental breakdown or following the development of anxiety or phobia. 

For a study made in Israel about Filipino migrant workers’ working conditions and personal welfare, Dr. Liat Ayalon, (2009) interviewed 245 women. 40% percent of the women did not receive a fair wage, 43% reported exploitation – they were required to perform tasks over and above those defined as being part of their job, and were not allowed a weekly day off. 41% reported verbal and emotional violence – they reported being treated as slaves, being shouted and sworn at, being treated with suspicion and subjected to close inspection. 43.7% reported being given insufficient food. 24.9% reported physical injury – usually by their Alzheimer afflicted employers but occasionally by family members, and 24.9% percent complained of sexual exploitation or harassment. Dr Ayalon reports that the injury and exploitation are linked to emotional burnout (24.4%). 

The countries ‘dispatching’ workers are attempting to make a global case for protecting the rights of migrant workers. The countries ‘receiving’ them claim to be attempting to provide fair working conditions. Israel, for example, has promulgated the Foreign Workers’ Law (1991), according to which employers of foreign workers are obliged to provide the same working conditions legally accorded Israeli workers. Unfortunately, the law is not enforced. Migrant care workers are employed behind closed doors, in the private domain and far from the public eye. There are always cuts in inspectors enforcing the Labour Laws. A recent G8 report stated that there was only one quarter of the standard number Labour Law inspectors in Israel. The truth is that no one really cares about the state of a migrant worker's back when he is required to carry a paralysed old man weighing eighty kilograms. No one cares when a caregiver is hospitalised after being denied proper sleep for years and no one cares that we have become a country of exploiters and patrons. 

Translated by David Raveh