Received: 11 October 2021    Revised: 7 November 2022    Accepted: 12 November 2022
DOI: 10.1111/imig.13096
O R I G I N A L  A R T I C L E
‘They'd beat us with whatever is available to 
them’: Exploitation and abuse of Ghanaian 
domestic workers in the Middle East
Leander Kandilige1  | Joseph Kofi Teye1  | Mary Setrana1 |   
Delali Margaret Badasu2
1Centre for Migration Studies, University of 
Ghana, Legon, Accra, Ghana Abstract
2Regional Institute for Population Studies, Generic accounts of pervasive cases of exploitation and abuse 
University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, Ghana
against migrant domestic workers in the Middle East exist in the 
Correspondence extant literature. However, very little is known about the breadth, 
Leander Kandilige, Centre for Migration depth and gendered nature of abuses experienced by female 
Studies, University of Ghana, P.O. Box LG 59, 
Legon, Accra, Ghana. migrants from especially the sub-Saharan African region. Abuses 
Email: lkandilige@ug.edu.gh; of the rights of sub-Saharan Africans are under-represented and 
leanderkandilige@gmail.com
under-theorised. This paper interrogates the question what is 
the nature, extent and severity of exploitation and abuse against 
female Ghanaian domestic workers in the Middle East? Using 
data from mixed-methods research, this paper adopts the 
framework of structural, symbolic and interpersonal violence to 
examine the range of abuses against domestic workers and the 
context within which these abuses take place.
INTRODUCTION
International migration continues to dominate global discourses on rights, responsibilities, belongingness and compe-
tition for and access to limited national resources, especially during economic downturns and global health emer-
gencies (IOM, 2020a, 2020b). The current global pandemic, COVID-19, has further exposed vulnerabilities that 
non-nationals face when states are compelled to adopt inward looking policies in the name of self-preservation 
(Parrenas, 2021). Over time, international migration has been the focus of much attention not only in countries of 
destination but also countries of transit and of origin. The most obvious lens through which international migration is 
analysed is that of the potential socioeconomic benefits to countries of origin (IOM, 2020a, 2020b; Kandilige, 2017). 
Correction added on January 18, 2023, after first online publication:  The framework that this paper adopts has been updated in the last line of the 
abstract. 
© 2023 International Organization for Migration.
Int Migr. 2023;00:1–17. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/imig 1
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2 KANDILIGE Et AL.
This is despite known challenges associated with international migration (IOM, 2020a, 2020b). The activities of 
illegitimate actors within the migration industry have imperilled the personal safety and livelihoods of a significant 
section of mostly low-skilled and irregular migrants (Agunias, 2013; Awumibila et al., 2019; Chan Unger, 2015; 
Chrouchi, 2002; Gammeltoft-Hansen & Nyberg Sørensen, 2013; Stivachtis, 2008). The increasing feminisation of 
international migration (Castles et al., 2014; Labadie-Jackson, 2008; UNDESA, 2014) and associated security impli-
cations resulting from trafficking, smuggling, exploitation and abuse of female migrants demand a closer examination.
As Awumbila (2015) posits, migration streams in Ghana are being feminised with growing numbers of Ghana-
ian females migrating through both regular and irregular channels in search of better work and life opportunities. 
The feminisation of international migration and the changing roles of intermediaries are, however, not unique to 
Ghana but shared across several developing countries (Spener, 2009; Xiang & Lindquist, 2014). Within the Ghana-
ian context, female domestic workers constitute the majority of persons recruited for employment in the Middle 
East (Labour Department, 2017). While there is a paucity of data on the migration patterns and conditions of these 
domestic workers, the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) has reported that the number of migrants to the Gulf region 
has increased tremendously in recent years, with the main destination countries being Saudi Arabia, Qatar and United 
Arab Emirates (UAE). The latest report on the Migration Profile for Ghana also indicates the growing number of 
mostly female domestic workers from Ghana to the Gulf Region due to high demand for domestic labour (IOM, 
2019). The growing feminisation of international migration is equally reflected within the West African region where 
Bisong (2019) notes that 46.7% of all migrants within the region are females. This is a slight increase in percentage 
from 45.3% in 2010 and 46% in 2015 (Setrana & Kleist, 2022:59). An exception is in countries such as Niger and 
Burkina Faso where female migrants surpass male migrants, representing 52% of the migrant stock (Bisong, 2019).
Graphic reports of generalised and widespread abuses against female Ghanaian migrants, like migrants of other 
nationalities, culminated in the imposition of a temporary visa ban for Ghanaian migrants recruited for domestic work 
in the region in June 2017. The Labour Department (2017) reported a total of 1755 migrants recruited by private 
recruitment agencies in 2015, 2372 in 2016 and 1589 by May 2017. According to IOM (2020a, 2020b) there is no 
official data on Ghanaian migrants in the Middle East post-2017. This data blackout complicates any credible trend 
analysis, but it has not marked an end to the reported incidents of abuse. The continuing incidents of victims to abuse 
from the country, after the imposition of the ban, however, suggests that this emigration control measure is ineffec-
tive (at best) and possibly counter-productive. The so-called temporary visa ban is still in place in 2022 and this has 
contributed to an increase in the number of aspiring migrants who use the services of unscrupulous informal/illegal 
recruiters and young females continuing to migrate to the Middle East as domestic workers but from the territories 
of neighbouring ECOWAS countries. The unintended beneficiaries of the policy measure are the informal/illegal 
recruiters while the victims are female migrants whose precarity has rather worsened. Other works on the migration 
of Ghanaian domestic workers superficially allude to cases of abuse. Awumibila et al. (2019), for instance, discussed 
the intricacies of the migration industry in Ghana, which facilitate the migration of Ghanaians through two main 
corridors towards Europe and the Gulf States. Relying on the risk theory, Awumbila et al. found that there is no strong 
correlation between migrants' awareness of potential risks and a reduction in migration flows. Their study alluded to 
generalised reported abuses and Ghana government's attempt to use banning of migration to the Middle East as a 
policy measure to curb incidents of abuse against migrants. As de Haas (2005) notes, policy actions by governments 
to ban, to minimise or to stop migration are part of the myths of migration.
Other studies have focussed on internal differences even in precarity. Fernandez (2011) identified a hierarchical 
ranking of female migrant domestic workers in the Middle East in relation to their race or country of origin. Filipina 
women are ranked at the top followed by Indonesian and Sri Lankan women, with African women at the lowermost 
part of the strata. For instance, households that employed Filipino, Indonesian and Ethiopian domestic workers are 
said to have accorded the Ethiopians the least recognition compared with the others. Disparities exist within pay 
scales depending on where one comes from. According to Fernandez (2011), Filipina women command the high-
est  salaries because of their perceived high status whilst Ethiopian women domestic workers in the Middle East 
are paid a miserable sum of $100 to $150 per month, which is generally below the payment standards. Practices of 
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EXPLOItAtION AND ABUSE OF DOMEStIC WORKERS 3
this nature are not novel as critical scholars have long acknowledged the fact that migrant workers have historically 
experienced discrimination, prejudices and unwelcoming gestures, which are confidentially tied to their class, gender, 
racial, ethnic and religious identities (Martin & Nakayama, 2018).
Governments of countries of origin periodically protest the ill-treatment of their nationals in the Middle East 
through the invitation of diplomats to explain abusive incidents and fact-finding missions by a cross-section of govern-
ment officials. These protests have done little to alter the scope of reported cases of abuse neither have they shaped the 
international relations with destination countries in any significant manner. While state action in reaction to a collective 
sense of abuse is laudable, very little is known about the breadth, depth and gendered nature of abuses experienced 
by female migrants, especially from the sub-Saharan African context. In addition, the racialised structural, symbolic 
and interpersonal violence perpetuated against women domestic workers is under-appreciated (Hourani et al., 2021; 
Montesanti, 2015). Unlike the substantial volume of the extant literature on the Philippines (Naufal & Malit Jr, 2018; 
Wilcke, 2011), Bangladesh (Human Rights Watch, 2021; Kagan, 2017) and Ethiopia (Ayalew et al., 2018; Demissie, 2018), 
accounts of abuse of the rights of black sub-Saharan Africans are under-represented and under-theorised. Whereas 
domestic worker migration to the Middle East is an established industry in the Philippines, Bangladesh and Ethiopia, it 
is a relatively new, unstructured and poorly regulated industry in West Africa. The paper, therefore, seeks to answer the 
question what is the nature, extent and severity of exploitation and abuse against female Ghanaian domestic workers in 
the Middle East. This paper adopts the framework of structural, symbolic and interpersonal violence to assess the range 
of abuses against domestic workers as well as the context within which abuses take place.
This paper is based on a larger research work that sought to examine the flows of domestic labour from Ghana to 
the Middle East, to investigate the specific vulnerabilities of Ghanaian domestic workers in the region and to provide 
key stakeholders and the general public with fact-based information relating to migrants' profiles and recruitment 
processes.
After this background, we conceptualise the contextual issues around exploitation and abuse, we outline the 
methodology used to collect the data before discussing the diverse range of exploitations and abuses. We then draw 
conclusions based on our findings and finally provide some policy recommendations.
Conceptualising contextual issues about exploitation and abuse
Acts of abuse and exploitation manifest in a variety of ways and the structures that permit and encourage symbolic 
and interpersonal violence against migrant workers are deeply engrained in the labour market systems across the 
Middle Eastern countries. In this paper, we attempt to use the structural rigidities that prevent any migrant worker 
from participating in the labour market except through the sponsorship of a kafeel (an individual or a company that 
serves as a sponsor) as a lens through which racialised abuses are perpetuated against migrant domestic workers. 
As noted by Fernandez (2021: 4347), ‘the state delegates responsibility to the kafeel (the sponsor–employer) for 
both the employment of the migrant and the acquisition of their residence permit (iqama) in the country'. The labour 
recruitment system (kafala), therefore, obligates employers to enforce immigration requirements on behalf of the 
state and this has permitted the wanton abuse of migrant workers' rights over several generations.
The structural framework enables an analysis of how the system of recruitment of domestic workers connotes a 
sense of personal ownership of an employee for the duration of their employment. The kafala system, which revolves 
around the employer sponsoring the entire cost of migration of an aspiring migrant worker and the legal liability to 
ensure the departure of the migrant at the end of their contract, cultivates the cognitive perception of the migrant 
being a piece of property. The lack of due process for protecting the rights of abused migrants within most Middle 
Eastern countries has inadvertently led to a culture of perpetuating abuse without any punitive actions. The plethora 
of unresolved incidents tends to model a negative behavioural propensity to abuse workers by perpetrators exploit-
ing an ineffective regulatory system. A system that permits abusive relationships between migrant workers and their 
sponsors promotes structural violence. According to Montesanti (2015:2), structural violence refers to ‘the social 
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4 KANDILIGE Et AL.
arrangements that put individuals and populations in harm's way…the arrangements are structural because they are 
embedded in the social, political and economic organisation of our social world; they are violent because they cause 
injury to people (typically, not those responsible for perpetuating such inequalities)’. Furthermore, structural violence 
is defined as forms of violence that are built into the fabric of society and create and maintain inequalities within and 
between social groups, including on the basis of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, ability, socioeconomic position 
and immigration status (Montesanti & Thurston, 2015:3). The structural dimension thus allows us to unpack a critical 
question—how are labour exploitations and abuses manifested in the kafala system?
The racialised dimensions of the kafala system are central to exploitations and abuses that are experienced by 
domestic workers. This often takes the form of interpersonal violence. This refers to routine violence in the form of 
sexual and physical assault perpetrated by family members, people who are intimately related or mere acquaintances 
(Simon-butler & Mcsherry, 2018). It could also be symbolic violence—non-physical violence that is exhibited through 
power differentials between social groups such as men versus women (Hourani et al., 2021). Fernandez (2021: 4358) 
notes that violations and abuses of the rights of domestic workers are often explained ‘psychologically as the pathol-
ogies of individual employers’ (Malaeb, 2015) but such descriptions ‘individualise and exceptionalise their occurrence, 
obscuring from view the institutional operation of the kafala that permits them (Pande, 2013), and the broader struc-
tures of racialised capitalism within which they occur’. A second guiding question, therefore, is what role does race 
play in the mediation of the types of abuses that are experienced by migrant domestic workers?
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The research employed an explanatory sequential mixed-methods research design comprised both quantitative and 
qualitative research approaches. This involved survey questionnaires administered to 113 respondents in the first 
phase and semi-structured interviews among four categories of interviewees (6 officials of Middle Eastern embassies 
in Ghana, 8 recruitment agents, 12 representatives of relevant government ministries, departments and agencies and 
12 return migrants) in the second phase. Quantitative research techniques support the assessment of the prevalence, 
likelihood and scale of a given phenomenon (Bryman, 2012). Qualitative research techniques enable the exploration 
and gaining of an in-depth evaluation of the meanings and subjective views that individuals or groups attribute to a 
social or human phenomenon (Cresswell, 2006). This can be achieved through the adoption of a range of intercon-
nected methods, such as desk-based research, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and participant 
observation (Akcam et al., 2019). Our justification for the use of both quantitative and qualitative methods was to 
gauge some key variables including the proportion of migrants in each destination country, types and frequency of 
abuse and the association between one's sex and type of abuse. Also, we sought to gain an in-depth understanding 
of migrants' experiences of abuse, how they reacted to or coped with the abuse and the impact on victims.
Target population and sampling procedure
Data were collected from returned domestic workers residing in the Greater Accra, Brong Ahafo and Eastern regions. 
These regions were selected purposively to gain a representative understanding of the issue in Ghana because they 
are key source regions for domestic workers who migrate to the Middle East. First, a questionnaire survey was 
conducted on a sample of 113 Ghanaian returned domestic workers to the Middle East. The questionnaire provided 
quantifiable data on the profile of the migrants and their experiences. To arrive at this sample, a snowball sampling 
technique was used to list 144 returnee domestic workers (in the first instance), from which 120 were selected for 
this study. The inclusion criterion was that a migrant must have lived in the Middle East for at least one year. The 
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EXPLOItAtION AND ABUSE OF DOMEStIC WORKERS 5
other 24 returnee domestic workers were excluded because they lived in the destination countries for less than a 
year. To minimise the likelihood of bias associated with sampling members of the same social network, the research 
team relied on different entry nodes during the listing process. In the end, a total of 113 (94%) of selected returned 
domestic workers participated in the study. The remaining 7 could not participate because of the lack of time and/or 
lack of interest. The distribution of the 113 respondents is as follows: Greater Accra (54 respondents), Brong Ahafo 
region (31 respondents) and Eastern region (28 respondents). In terms of gender distribution of respondents, 20 
(18%) of the 113 respondents were males while the remaining 93 (82%) were females.
After analysing the questionnaires, in-depth interviews were conducted with twelve (12) purposively selected 
returnee domestic workers, comprising 10 women and 2 men, to further explain the patterns identified by the ques-
tionnaire survey. Participants were selected based on their appreciation of the phenomena under investigation, diver-
sity of destination countries visited and gender. Interviews were conducted between February and April 2018. These 
allowed for a better understanding of migration trajectories and experiences in the Middle East.
Data analysis
The quantitative data generated by the questionnaire were analysed using STATA. In the quantitative analysis, we 
examined the relationship between certain background variables such as region of residence or country of destina-
tion with outcome variables such as type of recruitment agency used and nature of abuse. The chi-square test of 
independence was performed to establish the significance of relationships, for example, between the country of 
destination and reported abuse. The decision rule used is to conclude that the relationship between any two varia-
bles under consideration is statistically significant only and only if the P-value of the chi-square test is less than 0.05. 
Stated differently, we conclude that there are significant statistical variations in percentage distributions of cases only 
in situations where the P-value of the chi-square test is less than 0.05. This paper is focussed mainly on migrants' 
experiences of abuse. Other aspects of recruitment processes and the role of intermediaries will be captured in 
separate publications.
Ethical considerations
Although discussing migration experiences with migrants and returnees does not necessarily place them in a vulnera-
ble position, the research team was aware that discussions related to past working conditions could generate discom-
fort. Established guidelines for dealing with various ethical issues, including informed consent and guarantees of 
anonymity and confidentiality, were strictly observed to protect respondents.
The interviews with return domestic workers were held in locations where participants could speak freely with-
out the risk of being overheard by others. Respondents were contacted and appointments were made with them prior 
to the interviews. During the initial contact, the purpose of the research was explained to them, and the consent was 
secured from them. The date and location for the interviews were also based on interviewee preference. Pseudonyms 
are used to protect the identity of respondents.
RESULTS
The nature of exploitation and abuses encountered in the Middle East
A significant percentage of return Ghanaian domestic workers surveyed reported that they suffered some form of 
abuse during their period of employment in the Middle East. As it is discussed below, these reported abuses took 
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6 KANDILIGE Et AL.
various forms, with sexual abuses being carried out by perpetrators across at least two generations (i.e. fathers and 
sons). Across the countries surveyed, 71% of respondents judged their experiences in the Middle East as abusive 
(Table 1). The proportion of domestic workers who reported that they were abused was highest in Kuwait (83%), 
followed by Qatar (75%) and then Saudi Arabia (53%). The chi-square analysis, however, did not find any significant 
relationship between the destination country and reported cases of abuse.
The quantitative research recorded five main types of abuse at the destination countries in the Middle East (see 
Table 2). Multiple responses provided included: extra unpaid tasks (56%), threatening behaviour (39%), sexual assault 
(30%), denial of food (25%) and caning (4%). Beyond the main categories identified in the quantitative survey, a 
more nuanced analysis of the qualitative data resulted in the authors recategorising the specific types of abuse into 
five typologies: verbal abuse, physical abuse, psychological/emotional abuse, sexual harassment/abuse, discrimina-
tion and poor welfare conditions (i.e. food, health, restrictions and lack of rest). The recategorisation was necessary 
because the authors deemed it more reflective of the detailed narratives recounted by the victims of abuse during 
the qualitative interviews.
The research indicates that types of abuses meted out to domestic workers are gendered in nature (see Table 3). 
While extra unpaid tasks and threatening behaviour were the leading forms of abuse across gender (92% and 58% 
for males and 62% and 44% for females, respectively), other forms of abuse, such as sexual assault and caning, were 
unique to specific gender groups. While no males reported any sexual abuse or caning as a form of abuse suffered, 
over 43% of females reported suffering from sexual abuse, for instance.
The five main categories of abuse that emerged from the qualitative research were: verbal abuse, physical abuse, 
psychological/emotional abuse, sexual harassment/abuse, discrimination and poor welfare conditions. In this section, 
we deliberately rely heavily on first-hand accounts by return domestic migrants as a means of providing voice to 
T A B L E  1   Distribution of migrants who were abused
Saudi Arabia Kuwait Qatar Other a Overall
Freq. % Freq. % Freq. % Freq. % Freq. %
Not Abused 18 47.37 6 16.7 4 25 5 21.7 33 29.2
Reported cases of abuse 20 52.63 30.0 83.3 12.0 75 18.0 78.3 80 70.8
Total 38 100 36 100 16 100 23.0 100.0 113 100
Pearson chi-square = 9.5579
Pr = 0.023
Source: Fieldwork data, 2018.
 aOman, Jordan, United Arab Emirate (UAE).
T A B L E  2   Type of abuse meted out to migrants
Saudi Arabia Kuwait Qatar Other a Overall
Type of abuse Freq. % Freq. % Freq. % Freq. % Freq. %
Caning 0 0.0 2 6.7 0 0.0 1 5.6 3 3.8
Denial of food 1 5.0 9.0 30.0 3 25.0 7.0 38.9 20 25.0
Extra unpaid tasks 9 45.0 14 46.7 9 75.0 13 72.2 45 56.3
Sexual assault 5 25.0 8 26.7 3 25.0 8 44.4 24 30.0
Threatening behaviour (e.g. 6 30.0 12 40.0 8 66.7 5 27.8 31 38.8
threat of deportation)
Other 11 55 13 43.3 2 16.7 3 16.7 29 36.3
Source: Fieldwork data, 2018.
 aOman, Jordan, United Arab Emirate (UAE).
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EXPLOItAtION AND ABUSE OF DOMEStIC WORKERS 7
T A B L E  3   Gender distribution of the kind of abuse experienced by migrants
Kind of abuse Male % Female % Overall %
Caning 0.0 (0) 5.5 (3) 4.48 (3)
Denial of food 25.0 (3) 30.9 (17) 29.85 (20)
Extra unpaid tasks 91.7 (11) 61.8 (34) 67.16 (45)
Sexual assault 0.0 (0) 43.6 (24) 35.82 (24)
Threatening behaviour (e.g. threat of deportation) 58.3 (7) 43.64 (24) 46.27 (31)
Source: Fieldwork data, 2018.
the domestic workers rather than imposing our own subjective interpretations on their personal experiences. Such 
an approach strengthens migrants' agency in an era where there is increased objectivisation and marginalisation of 
the narratives by vulnerable categories of migrants. Awumbila et al. (2018:4), for instance, draw on other literature 
(Gardiner, 2008; Strauss, 2017) to demonstrate how the multiplicity of brokers in the migration industry tends to 
‘perpetuate the production of the ‘ideal’ migrant domestic worker with qualities of deferential femininity, docility and 
subservience, so that she fits into specific labour market niches at the destination’. Within this context of precarity, 
migrant domestic workers are stripped of their dignity and voice, and they are objectivised as malleable/exploitable 
labour.
Earlier literature by scholars such as Hernández-León (2008:154) argued that the migration industry comprises 
an ‘ensemble of entrepreneurs, who, motivated by the pursuit of financial gain, provide a variety of services facilitating 
human mobility across international borders’. This for-profit space is inhabited by both ‘legitimate’ and ‘illegitimate’ 
actors. The ‘illegitimate’ actors within the migration business are accused of objectifying migrants as ‘commodities’ 
that are transported to be traded (Salt & Stein, 1997:480). This label on brokers within the migration industry makes 
them more likely to align their sentiments with employers rather than workers to advance their profit motives. The 
Human Rights Watch (2021) documents the sale of women by recruitment agencies to employers in the Middle East, 
for instance, a Bangladeshi domestic worker, Asma K, was ‘sold’ by her recruitment agent for $4052 to a man in the 
UAE who then trafficked her to Oman and engaged her in long hours of work without rest, food or wages and sexually 
harassed her. In this tragic account, the victim is subjected to multiple typologies of abuse concurrently. This suggests 
that while typologies of abuse are useful for delineating categories, the experiences of victims mostly straddle these 
categories.
Verbal abuse as a form of intimidation
Non-physical violence can be insidious and debilitating to the emotional well-being of victims. Verbal abuse is a 
common form of symbolic violence that is usually combined with other means of dehumanising migrant domes-
tic workers. The use of offensive words, behaviours and non-verbal communications to produce, reproduce and 
legitimise skewed power relations between an employer and a worker constitutes a typology of abuse (Hourani 
et al., 2021). Many Ghanaian domestic workers highlighted verbal abuse as a common form of intimidation and abuse. 
There are different scenarios where verbal abuse is meted out to domestic workers. It is, for instance, deployed when 
employers claim that they are dissatisfied with either the quality or pace of work done. Grace and Adjeiwaa's experi-
ences from their migration to Kuwait exemplify these scenarios:
…she used to shout at me … I will go to every single room and dress their beds properly and spray the 
room. When I forget to spray the room, they will come and call me at 1:00 am and ask me why I didn't 
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8 KANDILIGE Et AL.
spray the room after working. She will tell me that I am lazy, and I am not sane. She said I was a fool 
from wherever I come from … 
(Grace Adu, return domestic worker from Kuwait, 3rd February 2018)
…anytime you wronged this woman [employer], she would refuse to talk to you for two weeks. She 
was unforgiving and when she spoke with you, she would insult you. She would inform everyone 
about one small mistake you made. … 
(Adjeiwaa, return domestic worker from Kuwait, 20th February 2018)
however, the complaints of verbal abuse are corroborated by some recruiters in Ghana. For instance, an informal 
recruiter acknowledges reports of verbal abuse against a domestic worker who migrated to the Middle East together 
with his own spouse:
…There's a girl, in fact, she also travelled with my wife on the same day. She complained bitterly about 
her first employers. She complained of constant insults and too much workload even though she just 
spent two weeks with them. So, she called the agent and complained to him, and he changed the 
house for her… 
(John, Informal Recruiter, 2nd March 2018)
The discretionary powers vested in employers to arbitrarily determine wage levels and the frequency of payments 
have exposed migrant workers to symbolic violence. When workers complain about non-payment or delayed payment 
of wages, they routinely suffer verbal abuse. Nii Lantei recounts how his attempt to request for his two-month 
outstanding wages angered his employer. In addition, Adobea refers to a racist slur that is used on domestic workers 
to justify why they do not deserve any payment for their labour. This points to the centrality of race in shaping the 
abusive behaviour of employers of domestic workers in the Middle East. The refusal to address workers by their 
names and the use of derogatory racial slurs instead connote the dominance of the employer as part of the ‘natural 
order’, which underlines prejudicial behaviours and subjugation within the kafala system (Hourani et al., 2021):
…when my salary wasn't paid for two months and at that time my people at home also needed money, 
I called the agent first. And when I realized nothing was done immediately, I approached the family 
head and he shouted at me saying that upon all they do for me I have the audacity to come and ask 
for my two months pay … 
(Nii Lantei, return domestic worker from Qatar, 20th February 2018)
They have a word they say in their language which alerts you that they are calling you a slave. But I 
cannot remember…they don't call you by your real name… 
(Adobea, return domestic worker from Jordan, 3rd February 2018)
Physical abuse as a demonstration of unequal power dynamics
Although the literature portrays Filipino domestic workers in the Middle East as highly ranked and privileged over 
other nationals (Fernandez, 2011), reports of abuse are still common among Filipino domestic workers, most of 
whom are women. Organisations advocating for the human rights of international domestic workers have catalogued 
physical assaults and confinement inside houses to work for long hours without rest amid deprivation of food and 
medical care as some of the experiences of Filipino domestic workers in Jordan, for instance. In addition to incidents 
of physical abuse, there are widespread cases of labour exploitation such as deliberate non-payment of promised 
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EXPLOItAtION AND ABUSE OF DOMEStIC WORKERS 9
wages, and confiscation of passports, residency and work permits, and these compromised trapped migrants' ability 
to escape from breaches of contract and/or the homes of abusive employers (Naufal & Malit Jr, 2018; Wilcke, 2011). 
In this regard, the experiences of Ghanaian domestic workers should not be exceptionalised but rather understood 
as part of a broader pattern of abuse in the kafala system, which comprises a racially stratified occupational hierarchy 
of migrant workers.
Physical abuse is partly a demonstration of the unequal power dynamics involved in worker-employer rela-
tions. The ability to inflict physical assault on a victim, without fear of retaliation or adverse consequences, seeks to 
re-enforce the vulnerability that is inherent in domestic work in the Middle East. As many employers perpetrate phys-
ical abuse against migrant domestic workers over time, these abuses are ultimately rationalised as normal. Children 
who observe their parents physically abuse their workers have a high propensity to emulate such adverse behaviours. 
Aisha, for instance, was physically abused based on unverified allegations by her employer's children. She was tied up 
and denied food for an extended period because she tried to escape, after nine months of not being paid her wages:
… I was punished by pulling my ear with her [employer] hand…Oh yes, their kids also came and pinched 
me and run away laughing. They kept worrying me like an animal in their midst … 
(Aisha, return domestic worker from Oman, 3rd February 2018)
…it was after I tried to escape that they chained me, and I nearly died. The police did this to me in 
the house, which was situated in the capital Muscat, the agency had other offices in Al-Kuwait. I was 
chained in the room, denied food for 21 days, when I asked for water, I heard them saying ‘giver her 
henam’, meaning give her urine.… 
(Aisha, return domestic worker from Oman, 3rd February 2018)
Interpersonal violence is usually carried out by individuals against members of their own family, those closely related 
to them or distant acquaintances. Migrant domestic workers fall under the distant acquaintance category. Our 
research finds that interpersonal violence against migrant domestic workers is pervasive in the sense that it is not 
only employers who carry out physically abusive acts against migrants but also extended family members. The audac-
ity of persons, who do not have any contractual relationship with migrant workers, to perpetuate physical abuse 
speaks of a culture of socialisation that births a negative pattern of behaviour within the broader society. This inter-
pretation highlights a cultural tolerance of such abuse at both the familial and societal levels. Two cases in point are 
those of Asaana and Maame Serwaa who reported physical abuse not directly by their employers but rather by their 
employers' family members. Some of the abuse was reported to be based on hatred on racial grounds. This reinforces 
the position of previous scholars (Fernandez, 2021) on the intersectionality among gender, class, nationality and race:
… initially I was physically abused and also maltreated by my madam's sister and it was clear from the 
way she used to speak that she hated blacks. I even reported her but nothing was done about it … At 
times my madam or even her sister who dislikes blacks will stretch out to hit me.… 
(Asaana, return domestic worker from Saudi Arabia, 2nd March 2018)
It's beating…Ah! They'd beat you with whatever is available to them. Sometimes they used the mob 
stick to beat us. I would say that the people from Bangladesh top the list of those who're beaten, 
because the ladies they brought from Bangladesh were usually very young. At times, some employers 
would maltreat them and burn some parts of their bodies with cigarette. I met one of them who'd 
really suffered beatings because her face and hands were all swollen… 
(Maame Serwaa, return domestic worker from Jordan, 4th April 2018)
In cases where domestic workers try to defend themselves from physical abuse, they risk imprisonment by employers 
reporting them to the police. Due to the lack of language proficiency, employers easily contradict accounts of abuse 
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10 KANDILIGE Et AL.
by domestic workers and rather convince the police to detain migrant victims. Such violence is structural in nature 
because, as noted by Montesanti and Thurston (2015), it is built into the fabric of society in a way that highlights 
inequalities within and between social groups, in this case, based on migrant workers' gender, nationality, socioec-
onomic position and immigration status. These incidents perpetuate the cycle of violence against migrant domestic 
workers. The accounts of Maame Serwaa and Kwakyewaa are illustrative of such abuses.
I also knew of a Ghanaian lady who had an issue with her madam. She did something and the madam 
had wanted to snatch her phone from her hands. But she was fast enough and drew the phone back-
wards. Having failed on her first plan, the madam slapped the Ghanaian lady who also replied her with 
a slap with equal weight. I think that lady was very lucky her madam's husband wasn't in the house. If 
the husband were to be in the house, they'd have arrested the poor girl and put her to prison… 
(Maame Serwaa, return domestic worker from Jordan, 4th April 2018)
One of my friends even called and told me that her madam wanted to kill her, because the madam owed 
her and was refusing to pay her. According to my friend, she ran to the police station and informed them 
that her madam owed her but wanted to kill her because she didn’t want to pay her. When the madam got 
to the police station and because the poor girl didn’t understand the Arabic language, the madam was able 
to convince the police that it was rather my friend who’d stolen her money. So, the poor girl was put in jail 
 (Kwakyewaa, return domestic worker from Kuwait, 20th February 2018)
Stories by return domestic workers are corroborated by recruiters in Ghana. Recruiters, both formal and informal, 
confirmed stories of physical abuse against some of their clients in the Middle East. They, however, recount instances 
of migrant agency where some domestic workers did not merely accept abuse as passive victims but rather defended 
themselves by either retaliating or threatening to fight back. Awumbila et al. (2016) examine how domestic workers 
sometimes exercise agency by using their body language to communicate their displeasure to their ‘madams’ who 
in turn reverse intended harsh treatment against their workers for fear of workers maltreating their children in their 
absence. In line with this defensive tactic, Maame Serwaa (return domestic worker from Jordan) recounts how she 
had to be a ‘hard lady’ to survive abuse: ‘But I'm not just a person that you can easily push over. So, when I saw that my 
madam was angry with me, I would also frown my face and walk away. I had to be a ‘hard lady’, because if they see that 
you're a cool person, they can beat you mercilessly and go scot-free’.
Psychological/emotional abuse as a statement of worthlessness
Some of the reported abuse suffered by migrant domestic workers was not physical but rather emotional, with returnees 
declaring that non-physical abuse affected their psychological and emotional well-being by making them feel worthless. 
Migrant domestic workers also declared being wrongly accused of theft and subjected to embarrassing searches, which 
undermined their self-confidence. The cycle of repeated reports of false accusations was used as a pretext for psycho-
logical and emotional abuse. For instance, Aisha was stripped naked and searched for alleged missing items. In addition, 
personal female health-related needs around menstruation are denied to domestic workers. Employers either fail to 
facilitate access to the needed sanitary accessories or they ignore female domestic workers' rights to a normal biological 
experience. Grace, for instance, was mocked as possibly being ‘a man’ when she complained to her female employer 
about an unusual menstrual cycle. The derogatory reference to a female as possibly being a male in disguise was specif-
ically meant to attack her sensibilities and her sexuality. Interpersonal violence sometimes targets one's sexuality.
…Once the woman of the house asked me to clean her room and right after I was done, she accused 
me of stealing her money. It even happened to me again. My employers did not lock their door, so I 
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EXPLOItAtION AND ABUSE OF DOMEStIC WORKERS 11
cleaned there and after they returned, they accused me of stealing their money. She ransacked my 
room, stripped me naked but didn't find it, she later found it and apologised… 
(Aisha, return domestic worker from Oman, 3rd February 2018)
In addition, emotional abuse takes the form of behaviour that makes one feel dehumanised (Ayalew et al., 2018). This 
manifests itself through acts of disrespect, discrimination and intimidation. For example, Nana Yaa and Asantewaa both 
felt disrespected by their employers due to the way they were spoken to and the chores they were required to complete:
They are not nice people. They shout at you and mistreat you and that can affect you really bad. You 
are made to feel less important psychologically. When I arrived initially, I could not bear the mistreat-
ment and I cried a lot because I had never experienced that before… 
(Nana Yaa, return domestic worker from Jordan, 19th February, 2018)
…some were very disrespectful. They will make you feel like you are less of a human being. There were 
times they could behave as if you stink or something. It was very traumatizing to feel that way. They 
will call you at any short notice to come and clean dogs' vomit and faeces … 
(Asantewaa, return domestic worker from Kuwait, 2nd March 2018)
A particular concern was around discrimination, on grounds of their race, against domestic workers who shared the 
same religious faith (Islam) as their employers. Hendow (forthcoming), discuss how Tafira (2011, 115) draws linkages 
between ‘biological’ and ‘cultural’ racism. Hendow and Kandilige note, for instance, that Taguieff (1990, 117) argues 
that racism can be articulated in terms of either race or culture and argues that racism does not only ‘biologise the 
cultural; it also acculturates the biological’. Biological racism, in this context, is perceived to be based on unequal 
treatment and exclusion of others due to phenotypical and other physical differences, while cultural racism builds 
on these to vilify and marginalise certain groups (Balibar, 1991). Hamamat (a Muslim migrant domestic worker) felt 
discriminated against because he was denied what he regarded as the basic dignity to be able to pray in an appropri-
ate space. Race thus provides a critical lens through which discriminatory attitudes could be understood. Some schol-
ars (Longva, 1997) choose to prioritise citizenship as the basis for abuse in the Middle East, which risks minimalising 
the centrality of race in shaping the experiences of black and brown-skinned migrants.
…I was really facing problems because I was not even allowed to pray in any of the rooms, so I had to 
say my prayers in the kitchen and eat in the kitchen. You know, there is this feeling of being free when 
one travels, I was never free…they are not good at all. The way they treat you when you go there, is 
like the olden days the way they sold people. They don't see you as human. Apart from themselves, 
they never believe there are Muslims anywhere else … 
(Hamamat, return domestic worker from Saudi Arabia, 19th March 2018)
Furthermore, Nii Lantei (return domestic worker from Qatar) asserts that ‘…if you are not a Muslim you are equal to a dead 
being. Like a dog before them …’. Other forms of inflicting psychological and emotional trauma on domestic workers 
were achieved by threatening them with physical harm for asserting their rights. While no physical harm might ensue, 
the threat of harm is sufficient to trigger emotional distress in domestic workers. Cases in point include those of 
Maame Serwaa who was threatened, at gunpoint, because she requested for her unpaid wages, and Adobea who was 
fined a hefty amount for attempting to abrogate her contract and return to Ghana because she was abused:
…She then threatened me that she would exchange her money with one of my kidneys…The agent 
didn't say anything. They acted together as a family, and I was the foreigner amongst them. I also 
noticed that they don't regard us as human beings but as slaves… 
(Adobea, return domestic worker from Jordan, 3rd February 2018)
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12 KANDILIGE Et AL.
The first dimension of migration infrastructures (Xiang & Lindquist, 2014) focuses on actors and agencies that engage 
in migration for profit, referred to as commercial intermediaries. These include recruitment agencies, brokers and 
human smugglers, border surveillance and security companies and anyone involved in facilitating or controlling migra-
tion. Recruiters from Ghana (commercial intermediaries) are not oblivious to the inherent risks their clients face at the 
destination countries in the Middle East. Recruiters sometimes help migrants to change employers when abuses are 
reported. However, this intermediation is only possible with licensed recruitment agencies that have contractual rela-
tions with kafeels in the destination countries. The ever-expanding tasks domestic workers are required to complete 
sometimes expose them to potential physical danger. An informal recruiter recounts how, for instance, a domestic 
worker was exposed to a mentally ill patient, without professional supervision:
The lady in Saudi Arabia said that the cause of her troubles was that one of her madam's sons was 
mentally sick. At the climax of his sickness and if his parents were not in the house, he'd chase her 
with a cutlass and other dangerous things. But her major problem was that she was supposed to do 
household chores, but later they added the feeding of goats to her daily activities, which was not part 
of the contract. So, her workload became too much and she felt she could not continue to work in 
that house any longer… 
(Adda, Informal Recruiter, 7th March 2018)
Sexual harassment/abuse that worsens precarity of domestic workers
Sexual harassment and cases of rape are recurring themes among domestic workers from Bangladesh (Rahman, 2011), 
the Philippines (Naufal & Malit Jr, 2018) and Ethiopia (Demissie, 2018). However, these forms of abuse are equally 
prevalent among Ghanaian female migrant domestic workers to the Middle East. Limitations in terms of avenues for 
seeking redress mean that most of such abuses are unreported to the formal authorities. In cases where they are 
reported, affected domestic workers are rather discredited by their perpetrators and accused of seducing ‘innocent’ 
male spouses of their employers. In line with the intergenerational transmission of violence (Milaniak & Widom, 2015), 
Asaana was forced to perform oral sex and she was later raped by the husband of her employer and his son. The 
participation of sons alongside their fathers in sexual abuse incidents perpetuates such violence from one generation 
to another. Maame Serwaa's male employer groped her and repeatedly made sexualised comments about her dress-
ing. The objectivisation of the bodies of black and brown female migrants as disposable property has emboldened 
male sexual predators to resort to rape and sexual assault as means of expressing their ‘dominant’ masculinity:
…yes I faced so many challenges, one was sexual assault from my madam's husband and her oldest 
son. My madam's husband will come to my room when my madam was not around, and he will ask me 
to rub his penis for him. He sometimes forcibly inserted it in my mouth after which he will rape me. 
After he is done, he will warn me not to tell anyone as he will kill me or report me to my madam that I 
always seduce him when she is not around. … 
(Asaana, return domestic worker from Saudi Arabia, 2nd March 2018)
…My employer, the man with an amputated leg, one day called me while I was working and took hold 
of my breast and squeezed it hard. That day I cried a lot, because I was afraid 
(Maame Serwaa, return domestic worker from Jordan, 4th April 2018)
The two accounts of sexual harassment and abuse were never reported to anyone during their migration. This was 
because of the precarity that characterises the nature of working in a private domestic space, lack of language profi-
ciency, lack of formal processes for seeking redress and the cavalier attitude of unscrupulous actors who operate in 
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EXPLOItAtION AND ABUSE OF DOMEStIC WORKERS 13
the migration industry. Some recruitment agents (especially informal or illicit recruiters) in Ghana are quite dismissive 
of claims of sexual harassment and abuse against migrant domestic workers. A representative of Mansee Travel and 
Tours agency, for instance, tried to rationalise sexual abuse as the fault of the victims because they apparently seek 
cheaper accommodation by agreeing to live with men in shared accommodation and thus, become vulnerable to rape. 
He also labelled workers who complain about sexual abuse as liars since they are not the only beautiful girls who go 
to the Middle East. This attitude exacerbates the propensity for employers to take advantage of domestic workers.
Discriminatory practices as a dehumanising tool
Working conditions of migrant domestic workers do not sometimes meet the minimum requirements of labour rights, 
especially the ILO Convention 189 on domestic worker rights. For instance, the humidity and high temperatures 
recorded in the Middle East necessitate the use of air-conditioning facilities. However, some domestic workers were 
excluded from this necessity because employers complained about the cost of electricity to them if domestic workers 
equally used air-conditioning facilities. Whereas the employers' family enjoy a controlled temperature in their rooms, 
workers' living quarters are exempted. In addition, some workers are not allocated rooms to sleep in but are rather 
compelled to lodge in living rooms, which were not insulated from mosquitoes:
The worst thing was she told me she wouldn't offer me a room to sleep in and so I should sleep in the 
hall, and I told her that would not be possible because I had been bitten by mosquitoes since I arrived, 
and I hadn't received any treatment.… 
(Adobea, return domestic worker from Jordan, 3rd February 2018)
The domestic work industry in Jordan relies quite heavily on peer-to-peer recommendation (Wilcke, 2011). Our study 
indicates that positive reviews from members of employers' social networks increase the likelihood of domestic 
workers from the same country being treated favourably. This system of generalising on workers' credibility based 
on previous experiences with others from the same country exposes workers to victimisation and biased treatment. 
This results in structural, symbolic and/or interpersonal violence against migrants who happen to be from the same 
country as a previous domestic worker who is deemed to have misbehaved. These are mainly derived from subjective 
assessments within patriarchal and racialised social norms and institutions, including the kafala.
Denial or retention of food from domestic workers as a means of punishment is commonly reported by return 
migrants (see Awumbila et al., 2016; Demissie, 2018; Naufal & Malit Jr, 2018; Rahman, 2011). In our study, while 
some domestic workers simply failed to adapt to their new realities in a foreign country, others desired the food but 
were denied, unless there was some leftover food after the employers had eaten. Aisha and Grace Adu relied on the 
leftover food, and they were compelled to fast for long periods at a time before being allowed to eat:
…I wasn't even given some of the food to eat, I sometimes ate raw rice, if there was leftover stew or 
soup that was when I got some … 
(Aisha, return domestic worker from Oman, 3rd February 2018)
…I only ate their leftover food. I cooked for them and when they were done eating the leftover was 
what I ate.… 
(Grace Adu, return domestic worker from Kuwait, 3rd February 2018)
Some formal Ghanaian recruiters such as Zachariah note the role of Ghanaian recruiters in intervening when reports 
of denial of food are made by domestic workers. Such negotiations are conducted through the local recruitment 
agents at the destination (kafeels), who in turn appeal to employers for clemency. This intermediary role of the 
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14 KANDILIGE Et AL.
Ghanaian recruiter is, however, not uniform but varies according to the type of recruiter (see Awumbila et al., 2018). 
The research finds that informal recruiters are either in denial that challenges exist regarding feeding of domestic 
workers or they lack any leverage to intervene since they do not usually have any formal relations with recruitment 
agents at the destination.
Access to health is another area where domestic workers face significant challenges. Employers routinely attempt 
to maximise the labour derived from domestic workers by resorting to self-medication at home rather than accessing 
professional healthcare services. There are instances of domestic workers being prescribed painkillers for any type of 
health condition and being required to continue to work. Intimidating behaviour discourages domestic workers from 
reporting their illnesses to their employers. These situations are worsened by the fact that domestic workers are not 
entitled to sick leave. Hamamat and Asantewaa recount their personal experiences:
…they don't send you to the hospital. The first place I stayed, I fell sick in the first, second, and third 
months but they never took me to the hospital. The only time they took me to a hospital during my 
stay there was to go and check whether I was pregnant or not… that was the only time they took me 
to the hospital… 
(Hamamat, return domestic worker from Saudi Arabia, 19th March 2018)
…I was only given some painkillers. Fatima [employer] gave them to me when I told her about my 
sickness. After the painkillers that was all, nothing else. I had to go and work the following morning … 
(Asantewaa, return domestic worker from Kuwait, 2nd March 2018)
CONCLUSION
This paper acknowledges the growing phenomenon of the feminisation of international migration as a potentially 
good opportunity, especially for low-skilled female migrants who would otherwise be marginalised (IOM, 2020a, 
2020b). However, the paper highlights the catalogue of abuses that are equally associated with the international 
migration of female domestic workers within the Middle Eastern context. The main channels of abuse identified 
include extra unpaid tasks, threatening behaviour, sexual harassment and assault, denial of food and caning. The 
paper further categorises the worse forms of abuse under five main typologies—verbal, physical, sexual, psychologi-
cal/emotional and discrimination. Drawing on the conceptualisation of violence as structural, symbolic and/or inter-
personal, the paper concludes that, the kafala system, which, according to Longva (1997), draws a historical lineage 
from indentured labour contracts especially among pearl divers in the Gulf States and was later transformed into a 
mechanism of labour control (Fernandez, 2021), serves as a petri dish for extensive exploitation and violent abuse of 
migrant workers based on parochial patriarchal and racialised social norms.
The paper also concludes that the range of abuses that have been unearthed are attributable to weaknesses in 
the system of recruitment and placement both in the country of origin and that of destination. The chain of intermedi-
aries that facilitates the migration of domestic workers to the Middle East is not supervised by any formal or central-
ised agency in the destination countries. As a result, domestic workers' complaints are not necessarily addressed 
effectively since there is no sanctions regime for brokers or employers who abuse workers' rights. This suggests a 
system failure, and there is a need for a regulatory system to monitor the operations of recruitment agents (kafeels) 
and employers in destination countries. Immigration control measures imposed by the origin country have proven to 
be ineffective because they have failed to address the fundamental underlying systemic factors that permit abuses 
against female domestic workers. The formal ban on domestic worker migration to the Gulf States afforded officials 
at six embassies of the Middle Eastern countries (in Ghana) deniability of knowledge of or culpability of their govern-
ments in these abuses. The compendium of academic, advocacy and policy reports as well as media reportage on the 
pervasive accounts of abuses experienced by female domestic workers in the Middle East, and the concomitant lack 
of concrete action to address these abuses risk normalising these forms of behaviour by employers and recruiters.
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EXPLOItAtION AND ABUSE OF DOMEStIC WORKERS 15
In Ayalew et al. (2018) study, return migrant workers recounted common cases of forceful assimilation, forced 
labour, suppression of human rights, cultural isolation, undermining of cultural identity and ensuing enslavement of 
Ethiopian women for economic or sexual purposes in the Middle East. Migrant women under the kafala system are 
subjected to exploitative and abusive behaviours including withholding of their travel documents by their employers 
who sponsored their migration. There are also reported cases of confinement to the home and therefore limiting 
women's sense of agency (Fernandez, 2010 cited in Ketema, 2014). In addition, there are widespread reports of 
systematic abuse of violence, rape, beating, starvation and slavery-like practices, excessive domestic work, debt 
bondage, sexual slavery and servitude meted out by families and individual employers to Ethiopian female domestic 
workers in the Middle East and the Gulf States (Demissie, 2018). We conclude that some of these forms of abuse 
from a relatively established source country in the East and Horn of Africa (Ethiopia), are equally reflective in the 
accounts from a neophyte source country such as Ghana, in West Africa. The pervasiveness and severity of reported 
abuses, therefore, require ethnographic research in the Middle Eastern destination countries to be able to fully appre-
ciate the racialised incorporation of African and Asian migrant domestic workers in the kafala as a mechanism of 
labour control (Fernandez, 2021).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank colleagues at the International Organisation for Migration (Ghana) for their support 
and guidance throughout the research project. We are also grateful for the funding that made this project possible. 
In addition, we wish to thank all our research assistants at the Centre for Migration Studies, University of Ghana for 
their diligence and professionalism during the fieldwork.
FUNDING INFORMATION
This paper is based on research carried out under the IOM regional project ‘Protecting Vulnerable Migrants in West 
and Central Africa’ funded by the US Department of State.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors report no conflict of interest.
PEER REVIEW
The peer review history for this article is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1111/imig.13096.
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are 
not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.
ORCID
Leander Kandilige  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8159-1305
Joseph Kofi Teye  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6493-3238
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How to cite this article: Kandilige, L., Teye, J.K., Setrana, M. & Badasu, D.M. (2023) ‘They'd beat us with 
whatever is available to them’: Exploitation and abuse of Ghanaian domestic workers in the Middle East. 
International Migration, 00, 1–17. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.13096
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