To wonder what happens to the maids and nannies etc when people flee Dubai/the Middle East

Why can't they do their own ironing and dress their kids?

No pinch of salt needed. I didn’t have a maid when we lived there. We had an agency cleaner a couple of times a week, which turned out to be pretty much as ethically problematic, as overall, I’d say the agency cleaner conditions were worse than those of someone living with a decent family — though ours went home to Sri Lanka and is married with children now, and DH is still FB friends with her).

And I’m sure there were families who were fair with their employees, insofar as a highly exploitative system of cheap domestic labour could ever be described as “fair”.

But when I lived in Dubai, ‘ma’am’ problems with maids were one of the main conversation topics at expat coffee mornings, or on the Dubai Expat Woman chat forum (not sure if it still exists — it was pretty much AIBU with servants and women-only public service queues).

You can imagine the potential for covert power struggles.

Lower-middle-class Brit from a semi-detached in Luton suddenly able to afford FT live-in domestic help when not used to employing staff.

Poorly-paid, often younger woman from overseas with few other employment opportunities, living inside the house of a family with unimaginably more money and opportunities than her. Many had children in their home countries they were supporting, so became very fond of the children, and sometimes that didn’t sit well with the ma’am.

I remember one woman throwing a fit because her maid kept putting her favourite (the maid’s) outfits on the children before taking them somewhere they would see other maids, to show them off, and then changing them out of them again before the mother came home. Various folk beliefs from their home countries they continued to obey, despite being told not to, like putting a thread on the baby’s forehead if it got hiccups, or there was some Filipino taboo about ironing having to be done after everything else, so a maid was refuse to iron first thing etc etc.

Lots of paranoia about the ‘maid mafia’ gossiping about their families while walking the family dogs, and employers trying to prevent their maid walking the dog at the same time as other maids. Photos of maid trying on her employers clothes or jewellery. Having her boyfriend round when employers out. And yes, in some cases, an employer feeling the maid was targeting her husband with extra attentions, making food he liked, ironing his favourite shirt etc etc. Added to all the complaints Mners have about their cleaners.

It was sometimes a real hot mess. Again, it’s a while since we lived there, so my information may be somewhat outdated, but the small, covert power struggles between a poor person living in her comparatively rich employers’ house probably haven’t.

The US State Department currently ranks the UAE as Tier 2, indicating it does not fully meet the minimum standards for eliminating trafficking but is making "significant efforts" to do so.

This is the State Department's independent assessment. Ireland is also tier 2.

I'm not going to say it's all hunky dory and perfect, but improvements are being made. My family there treat the maids well, pay them fairly and don't hide their passports.

In many African cultures it's considered immoral to not pay for help if you can afford to do so. Money is seen as something to be shared.

For heaven's sake, @Jdnd -- the UAE 'government' is a tribal dictatorship run by a few interrelated families only interested in the living conditions of migrants insofar as they want to present a superficially Westernised face to the world in order to continue to roll out the business model for Dubai, which, lacking oil, has had to diversity into tourism and financial services.

It does this in part by importing tens of thousands of influencers to promote Brand Dubai as safe and luxurious, rather than a country in a politically volatile spot in the ME in which peaceful protest and freedom of expression are criminalised. Hence the frequent reminders at the moment that Big Brother is watching, and that you need to stay on message. Influencers are propagandists for an authoritarian regime that likes to pretend it's not.

And bluntly, lot of laws have been introduced or modified in the UAE, with minimal attempts at enforcement. It's very easy to pass a law when a country is your personal fiefdom, and you don't have to get it through parliament. It makes you look good on paper, and you can point to it and say 'See, it's illegal to not let your housemaid have eight consecutive hours of sleep'.

As one very minor (and mildly funny) example, when I was living there, the government passed a law making breastfeeding compulsory. You had to breastfeed for two years, or you would be contravening the rights of your child to a healthy start in life, and could technically be sued or otherwise punished, including by your husband. And this is the best bit. Members of the federal council also added that for women unable to breastfeed, wet nurses would be provided.

Obviously, this completely unenforcable bit of nonsense has just sat on the statute books since, with no one working out the dirty details about who checks how a baby is fed, who determines whether a woman is really unable to breastfeed, who sources the wetnurses etc etc.

Not Dubai but another country in the region. I do believe that a lot of ordinary British families in these situations will look after their staff. When I was a baby we lived in a developing country in Africa. It was v expected to employ as many locals as possible so you’d have a gate guard, gardener, cook/house person, steward. I had a nanny when I was a baby, a local woman. My mum adored her. Years later when we left the country my mum paid for her children to go through college, gifted money for weddings. she is still in touch with the late nanny’s children on Facebook etc. even now occasionally a message sometimes comes, can you send me some money for xyz, and we left that country in the 80s!

I thought it might be something like that... Just "normal", and maybe you would even be looked down on if you didn't have a maid?

But... what did they do all day? If there was a woman there doing everything a SAHM would do?

I think employing local people is different to employing people brought in for that purpose who have their passports taken from them. They certainly aren't employing citizens of Dubai.

I was born in a North African country in the 1950s because my Dad had to go there for work (not military but adjacent). My parents were a working class couple from Liverpool but were expected to employ a local to do the washing. When they came home it was back to an outside toilet and handwashing nappies herself because there was no washing machine. It wasn't a dubai lifestyle.

My information is out of date these days, as I will be the first to admit, and we never employed household help other than visits from an agency cleaner, so I'm only answering from what I saw around me when we lived there.

I would say that families with a SAHM employed live-in domestic help because it was cheap, widely available, and considered normal, to the point where not having a maid would have been like not having a fridge.

Villas are still advertised as '4-bed + maid's room'. In older houses, the maid's room was a separate little structure in the yard. In newer ones I've seen, it tends to be off the hall near the front door with its own bathroom. My point is that domestic help is so normal it's built into the architecture.

Well I was trying to, and actually I think there are quite a few people here on MN who could answer, although perhaps they don't want to.

I didn't quote anyone, but I was thinking Sprawling would probably be able to answer, she's obviously knowledgeable. Of course, if anyone else is reading who's got some insight, that would be good too.

I honestly can't see how anyone lives out there if cleaning dust is actually a full time job, 8+ hours every day? (Close the windows and use the air con? Screen doors and porches? Presumably high earners live in houses that are built to withstand this?) Doesn't it make you ill?

Still, if the issue really is that it takes the hours of a full time job to keep the dust at bay, I still don't see why you wouldn't hire someone to do that, and do the rest of the home and family stuff yourself, if you'd feel threatened otherwise. None of this makes sense.

Not Dubai but another country in the region. I do believe that a lot of ordinary British families in these situations will look after their staff. When I was a baby we lived in a developing country in Africa. It was v expected to employ as many locals as possible so you’d have a gate guard, gardener, cook/house person, steward. I had a nanny when I was a baby, a local woman. My mum adored her. Years later when we left the country my mum paid for her children to go through college, gifted money for weddings. she is still in touch with the late nanny’s children on Facebook etc. even now occasionally a message sometimes comes, can you send me some money for xyz, and we left that country in the 80s!

That's good to hear. Were you in Dubai - or somewhere else?

No sense here . Your sister is presumably a “ she” but husband fucked “ him “. So who did he fuck ?

So go ask a woman who employed a maid and saw her as a threat then. Doubt you will find any on here. And yes it’s extremely dusty out there and there are regular sandstorms. Think a layer of dust on everything every day. I hope that helps!

Something the UAE government is actively trying to combat and improve upon regarding migrant exploitation. It is wrong and people are being prosecuted for trafficking.

Not being allowed to say whatever you want on SM isn't all that bad. I'd be careful. There's a lot of good things in Dubai as well.

The trafficking is wrong and the UAE is taking steps to combat it.

There are maids in the UAE who are treated fairly.

please stop with the “why do they need the help”

No, I'm not going to stop asking legitimate questions, especially when tbh I'm not very satisfied with the answer. The house got dusty very quickly? That's it?

I also didn't ask why women work as maids, that's obvious. I asked why a woman who doesn't work employs a maid/nanny if she views her as a threat, and what she would do all day. The answer, apparently, is "hours a day cleaning dust".

Ok.