November 27, 2017
In the second of the four-part series, we explore the environment of desperation and speak to women who are eager to leave Ethiopia, ban or no ban. They see migration as an escape, disregarding what they are escaping to.
‘We have never been colonised’ is a refrain that echoes in every conversation you have in Ethiopia, from the front office staff at the hotel to the taxi driver, from the community worker to the petty shop trader.
A proud refrain against the backdrop of large-scale Chinese investments and schemes driven by donors from every rich country imaginable, with poverty so extreme, corruption so high, and the middle class a minority.
So far they have paid only for the passport, but expect to pay another 9,000 to 11,000 Ethiopian Birr (USD 330 to 400) for her to be able to travel.
Abeba Sied Adam is also at a similar juncture. In her case, she is being urged to migrate by her father, and as she claims, her 7-year old daughter.
Her passport and medical reports are being processed so she can go to Dubai as a domestic worker. She shrugs when she hears of a ban. Everyone is going to Dubai, she smiles.
Twenty-seven-year-old Abeba works at a nightclub in Komblocha. She is candid about her life and work in Ethiopia, despite her seven-year-old lounging on the narrow cot in one corner of the room, listening to her mother speak.
Her paperwork has been with the broker for about three months now. She has paid him 6,000 birrs so far; savings from her work at the nightclub. “I make good money there, about 7,000 birrs (USD290). And if I can’t raise more money I will ask my father for help. I have to go.”
Abeba wasn’t really planning to migrate. “My father lives in Wuchulu (90kms from Komblocha) and in his village he heard of a broker sending women from the community to the Middle East, and convinced me to meet him.”
Her father, she claims, doesn’t know she works in a nightclub and earns well.
“I just trust my father to get all the information. I know I am not going through a regular agent.”
The lady who took her in when she ran away from her parents home years ago, to work in the club, has warned her to be careful in the Gulf. “She was telling me about people stealing organs.” An accusation thrown in so casually, taken so lightly.
Abeba, now that the decision to go abroad has been made, cannot give room for any doubts in her mind.
“My daughter will live with her grandparents. She wants me to go. She sees other small kids who receive gifts from their mothers who live abroad. She wants to buy a house also. This is rented,” she says, waving her arms dismissively at the blue walls of her single room home.
Across the doorway, in one corner is a coal-fuelled stove and some utensils. An uncovered window provides the only natural light source for the room. The remnants of a birthday celebration are still up on the wall.
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