At the beginning of 2008, Joy, a Filipino national, signed a two-year employment contract as a domestic worker in Jordan. Her employer confiscated her passport, violating the Labor Law and Passport Law, and forced her to work 18 hours a day for five years in hopes of retrieving her passport and finding another job.
By September 2013, Joy lost hope and left the employer’s home, working as a daily laborer for two years in an attempt to regularize her status and reclaim her passport to return to her country.
However, her employer filed a “runaway report” at the police station after she left, accusing her of “escaping.” Employers often use these reports as a means to pressure workers into returning to work.
Seeking Help
In March 2018, Joy approached a civil society organization, which attempted mediation with the employer. However, the employer refused to return her passport, prompting Joy to take legal action.
On March 5, 2018, Joy and her lawyer attempted to file an official complaint with the West Amman Public Prosecutor, citing the illegal confiscation of her passport under the Labor Law, Passport Law, and Penal Code. However, the court clerk refused to accept the complaint without the passport, which was the very subject of the case. The clerk did not understand the issue and insisted on the passport’s presence. The lawyer then approached the prosecutor, who requested Joy’s personal identification number, which was obtained from the Residency and Borders Department after seven days.
Translation Challenges
On March 12, 2018, since Joy did not speak Arabic, the prosecutor assigned a translator per the Code of Criminal Procedure. However, the translator was a Sri Lankan present in the court, translating from English without verification of her qualifications for legal translation.
In her statement to the prosecutor, the translator rendered Joy’s testimony as: “I ran away from his house and worked in other homes, and my passport remained with him.” However, upon closer review, Joy had stated: “I left the house to work in other homes,” adding that she had experienced numerous violations.
Trial Proceedings
Joy attended her first hearing at the West Amman Magistrate Court on April 23, 2018. The court reappointed the same translator from the prosecutor’s investigation. Both Joy’s and the employer’s lawyers objected, and the employer did not oppose the appointment of a different translator. When court proceedings began, Joy’s lawyer again objected to the quality of the translation, but the court dismissed the objection without recording it in the minutes.
In the next session, despite the lawyer’s objections, the court allowed Joy to testify. She stated, “When I asked the defendant and his wife for my passport, they told me to go to the police station to retrieve it. I didn’t go because I feared I might face problems there and be detained.”
Court Decision
On July 15, 2018, the court ruled that the employer was not responsible, as he had offered to hand over the passport through the police station, but Joy had refused out of fear of detention due to a “missing person report” filed against her by the employer. The court concluded that the employer’s retention of the passport was not for unlawful purposes, especially since Joy had fled to an unknown location.
Joy’s lawyer appealed the case, but on November 19, 2018, the Court of Appeals upheld the previous ruling, citing the Code of Criminal Procedure. This decision absolved the employer of guilt and did not require him to return Joy’s passport. Consequently, Joy was left without her passport and unable to regularize her legal status in Jordan. She remains under the “missing person report” filed by the employer at the police station.
The Kafala System
Under the 2012 Regulations for Conditions and Procedures for Employing and Recruiting Non-Jordanian Workers, employers are granted the authority to report a worker to the Labor Directorate if the worker leaves their job during the validity of their work permit. However, such reports are not accepted during the final two months of the permit's validity.
Employers often misuse this authority by filing a “missing person report” at the police station against a worker, even if the worker does not have a residency or work permit, and without verifying whether the worker has truly left their job. In some cases, the worker may still be employed by the same employer, but the employer files the report to avoid the costs of renewing the worker’s permit and residency. Once the worker’s employment ends, the employer delivers them to the police station, which then transfers the worker to the administrative governor for deportation.
Additionally, employers report to the Ministry of Labor that the worker has “absconded,” a practice known as a “runaway report.” This can occur even if the worker’s permit has expired, violating the regulations. Such actions reinforce the Kafala system, forcing workers to remain in exploitative conditions and exposing them to abuse and modern slavery by their employers.
Linguistic Impacts on Legal Cases
The use of certain terminology by courts and government agencies perpetuates the principles of the Kafala system and reinforces notions of servitude. In reviewing a previous court decision, terms such as “escape” and “maid” were used, along with “runaway” in official regulations, all of which imply forced labor.
A labor contract is a mutual agreement between parties, allowing either party to terminate or annul the contract under normal circumstances. Therefore, using terms like “escape” or “runaway” is unjustified, as the employment relationship is not one of servitude or exploitation. The term “runaway” is typically associated with someone fleeing from justice, not with an individual bound by an employment contract.
Moreover, the use of the term “maid” diminishes the value of the worker’s role and suggests subservience or servitude. Domestic workers are human beings and should be regarded as employees with rights and obligations like any other worker.
Translation also plays a crucial role. For instance, the mistranslation of “leaving work” as “escaping” by the prosecutor misrepresented the worker’s actions. This gave the court the impression that the worker had willingly abandoned their passport, contrary to the reality that the employer had confiscated it. This misrepresentation influenced the court’s decision to rule that the employer’s actions did not constitute a criminal offense.