Thursday, Nov 13, 2003
Thursday, Nov 13, 2003 |
| International | ||||
|
News:
Front Page |
National |
Southern States |
Other States |
International |
Opinion |
Business |
Sport |
Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary | International
Ms. Thomas came to Israel in January 2000 at Mr. Oron's invitation, on a promised monthly salary of $100 (about Rs. 4,500 under current exchange rates) and nursed the aged matron at Moshav Taoz, a farming community on the outskirts of Jerusalem founded by Jews who came to Israel from Kerala, until her death in March 2000. For the next 15 months, Ms. Thomas, who had been a nurse with a hospital in Kochi, became a live-in maid for Mr. Oron's sister, Dorit Josef Solomian. Ms. Thomas has stated that she worked 16 hours a day, doing the household chores and caring for the family's two infants. She had no rest, no free time and no off days, she said. ``I went out only to dispose the garbage. I did not know even how the Moshav looked like, did not meet anybody. And when I wanted to go out, Ms. Dorit would say, stay inside, you have nothing to do out there,'' she told the Jerusalem weekly Kol HaIr. ``It is very difficult, painful. They know I am unfortunate and why did they do this to me?'' she asked. In June 2001 she was asked to return to Kochi, and was given $1,500 (about Rs. 67,500 under current rates) in cash, for the entire period. The monthly minimum wage in Israel for an eight-hour workday, five-day week is the equivalent of Rs. 28,660. But soon Ms. Thomas returned to Israel, pressed by her needy parents and lured by Mr. Oron's telephone calls and a promised doubling of her wages. The money would help support her seven sisters and three brothers, she told Kol HaIr. This time she was sent to nurse Suha Dor, the mother-in-law of Mr. Oron's daughter, Ayelet Dor, at the nearby Moshav Zecharia. Here her hours were longer and in addition to undertaking household chores and childcare, Ms. Thomas had to feed the livestock. Again she had no free time and no holidays, according to Ms. Thomas. Nine-and-a-half months later, she returned to India to marry. She was then paid a lump sum at the monthly rate of $160. But soon, she returned to Ayelet Dor, working the same long hours, in order to save money to buy a house in Kochi. Her husband, Joy, followed at Mr. Oron's invitation to work at a nearby farming village. For the next 10 months the couple barely saw each other. Finally they decided at one of their rare meetings to find refuge with an Indian friend in the town of Beersheba. That friend referred Ms. Thomas to Kav LeOved or Workers Hotline, an organisation handling complaints by foreign guest workers against their Israeli employers. (Contacted on e-mail by The Hindu's Kochi bureau, Hanna Sohar of Workers' Hotline, however, declined to provide further details of the case or Ms. Thomas' current coordinates. In doing so, the agency cited Ms. Thomas' desire for privacy in the matter. Inquiries with the members of the fast-dwindling Jewish community in Kochi, which has been in the city for some 2,000 years now, also drew a blank. The Protector of Immigrants in Kochi could not provide any information.) Ms. Thomas had displayed incredible ignorance of her rights and accepted everything that had happened to her as divine fate, said her Israeli attorney, Miriam Baksht. "I thought this is the way things are done in Israel," responded Ms. Thomas, whose personal documents had been seized by her employers. Her suffering was aggravated by two days' imprisonment after she was detained as an illegal worker by Israel's emigration police squad. Her attorney has applied for an Interior Ministry licence for Ms. Thomas to work legally in Israel as a certified aged care nurse. Her husband's whereabouts were not immediately known.
Denial
In their submission to the court the defendants have denied most of Ms. Thomas' charges. After they paid her $5,700 in wages, she still owed the family $2,800 in travel expenses between India and Israel, wrote their attorney, Ofir Tal. Ms. Dorit Josef said that she had withheld payment because Ms. Thomas did not want to send money to India. She worked only six hours a day after Esther Oron passed away and was given one day off a week as required by law. She had been accepted into the family and had even been taken to Jerusalem and Nazareth to see the Christian holy places, she claimed. Ms. Dorit Josef denied that Ms. Thomas had to do household chores and accused her of lying and deceit, and of seriously inconveniencing them by fleeing the Moshav, making it legally difficult to find a nursing replacement. Mr. Joseph Oron, a former labour and manpower coordinator in the Ministry of Agriculture responsible for bringing foreign agricultural workers to Israel, could also be charged with illegally hiring a foreign worker, which carries a stiff penalty and imprisonment. Both sides have been instructed to appear before the Labour Court on December 17 to try and resolve the dispute through arbitration. — PTI
Printer friendly
page
News:
Front Page |
National |
Southern States |
Other States |
International |
Opinion |
Business |
Sport |
Miscellaneous |
|
|
|
The Hindu Group: Home | About Us | Copyright | Archives | Contacts | Subscription Group Sites: The Hindu | Business Line | The Sportstar | Frontline | The Hindu eBooks | Home |
Copyright © 2003, The
Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of
this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of
The Hindu
|
