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Karina longed for humane treatment

De Guzman said it took her a little more than a year to convince herself that she needed to leave her sponsors or endure the hardship and end up losing her sanity.

“I ran away from my employers in 2005 after arriving in the UAE a year earlier because I couldn’t stand the way they treated me. I just wished they respected me as a human being,” said De Guzman.

While she did not mind the heavy workload, she said it was hard to bear the poor treatment she received from her sponsors. “I worked 18 hours a day with barely enough food and rest for a meagre salary of Dh650 a month. It was unbearable during Ramadan because I would have to wake up early in the morning and sleep very, very late at night,” she lamented.

After benefitting from the amnesty programme, De Guzman said she looked forward to going back to her native Philippines and learn new vocational skills. “I know there’s nothing for me to lean on in the Philippines. I would eventually have to leave again to work overseas. But I don’t want to work as a domestic helper anymore. I want to work in an office or perhaps in a restaurant or hotel,” she said.

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