Aisha

Almarzogi
ENGL 104
Indonesian Workers in Qatar Discourse Analysis
Introduction
I chose the community of Indonesian workers in Qatar, more specifically house maids. I
chose this community because of the huge number of Indonesian house maids here in
Qatar. I am interested to know more about the ways that they communicate with other
Indonesian house maids here and how do they communicate with their families in
Indonesia. Also, I want to know more about the difficulties that they face that prevents
them from communicating with their families. In addition to that I want to know about what
do Indonesians think about coming here for work, and what do they think about the ban
that have happened few years ago that prevented Indonesians house maids from coming to
work in GCC countries. How did the ban affect them as Indonesian workers? And what do
they think made the Indonesian government to back away from the decision?
I also want to look at the ban from the employers perspective. Did they know about it? And
what do they think was the reason behind it? Also, what do they think made the Indonesian
government to back away from the decision?

Methods
At the beginning, I listed some of the ways that I think this community would communicate
with each other, either here in Qatar or with their families in Indonesia. Some of the ways
that I think they are using to communicate with each other here in Qatar and also with their
families are phone calls, texts, WhatsApp, and video calls. Then I interviewed an Indonesian
worker, her name is Faiza, she is our house maid. The interview was held on the 15th of
February 2017. I asked her several questions concerning the ways that she communicates
with her family and with other house maids here in Qatar, also I asked her about the
difficulties that she faces that prevents her from communicating with her family. I also
asked her about the ban that have happened that prevented Indonesian workers from
coming to work here in GCC countries. The questions that I have asked her in the interview
are:
-How do you communicate with your family in Indonesia?
- What are the difficulties that you face when you are here in Qatar that prevents you from
communicating with your family?
- What do Indonesians think about coming to work here in Qatar?
- What do Indonesians think about the ban that have happened few years ago that
prevented Indonesian workers from coming to work here?
- Do they agree or not? Why?
-How did the ban affect Indonesians themselves?
-What do you think made the Indonesian government to back away from the decision?

I did another interview with a Qatari employer who has a housemaid, her name is Huda. The
interview was held on the 30th of May. The questions that I have asked her in the interview
are:
-Did you know about the ban that have happened few years ago that prevented Indonesian
house maids from working in some Middle Eastern countries?
- What do you think was the reason that made the Indonesian government ban their citizens
from coming to work in those countries?
-What in your opinion made the Indonesian government to back away from the decision?

Findings
The audience first needs to know more about the interviewee, how long have she been
working in Qatar? Does she know other Indonesians here? What is the ban? And when did it
happen?
First of all, Faiza has been working in Qatar for 3 years, she does know other Indonesians
here and she sees them almost every day. The ban happened in 2015 were the Indonesian
government banned Indonesians from working as house maids in some Middle Eastern
countries including Qatar. The Indonesian government was worried about the safety of its
citizens because of the bad treatment that they get and because of disrespecting their
rights.
When I asked Faiza about the ways that she communicates with her family in Indonesia, she
said that she talk to them on phone and sometimes she uses video call to talk to her family. I
asked her about the difficulties that she faces when trying to communicate with her family,
she said that there werent any. But in my opinion, I think that she might sometimes faces
difficulties with the internet connections that prevents her from video calling her family, but
she might not see it as a difficulty since she can phone call them instead. Her answer made
me think about what other difficulties that she faces every day without telling anyone about
it? But I suspected that because she didnt say anything about the internet connection, she
might as well say nothing about anything else. Then I asked her about what do Indonesians
think about coming to work here in Qatar? She said that not all of them agree on one
opinion. Some says that the treatment here in the Middle East countries are bad and does
not encourage them to come and work here. While in the other hand some people say that
it depends on the house that you are working in. These days with internet connection
almost all the time, and the ability to video call their families as much as they want to may
have helped to change the idea that Indonesians have about working in the Middle East.
They can talk everyday about every small detail and they could tell their families more about
the environment that they are in. I think having this kind of communication more easily
these days have helped change Indonesians perspective about working here in the Middle
East.

Continuing with my questions to Faiza, I asked about what do Indonesians think about the
ban that have happened few years ago? Do they agree or not? First of all, Faiza was working
here in Qatar when the ban happened, the ban only prevented Indonesians from coming
here to work as house maids but it didnt require Indonesian house maids that are already
in those countries to go back to Indonesia. Faiza said that most Indonesians agree with the
ban, because they think that it is unfair for them to have low salaries compared to house
maids from other nationalities. But she didnt mention anything about the treatment and
whether the ban made it better or not. I think that possibly she didnt know anyone that
was treated badly while working in the Middle East, or maybe she preferred not to talk
about this part. I also think that when she said that many Indonesians agree with the ban,
she didnt actually mean that they agree with the ban, I think she meant that they agree
with the demands of the government to have better treatment and better salaries.

I asked her if the ban affected Indonesians themselves, she said that it didnt affect them
very much, because many of them switched to go and work in other countries such as
Taiwan, Honk gong and South Korea. I asked her what does she think made the Indonesian
government to back away from the decision, she said that after the ban Indonesian house
maids salaries was raised. Also, the ban made some of the countries to change their
treatment toward house maids, especially Indonesians because many prefer Indonesian
house maids rather than other nationalities, possibly because almost all Indonesian house
maids that come to work in GCC countries are Muslims. All employers in GCC are Muslims so
this helps both the Indonesian house maids and the employers because of having the same
religious culture and same perspective regarding religion. I think, as a member of GCC
countries, I saw the change happen in reality. I have read on Twitter that many people
started changing their treatment toward workers in the country. And many of them have
realized that this treatment and giving low salaries is unfair for them. So, I believe that the
ban was a good thing that have happened for Indonesian house maids.

Huda has an Indonesian house maid currently working in Qatar. I asked her if she knew
about the ban, she said that she did know about it. I asked her what does she think was the
reason for the ban? She first said that there was a conflict that happened in one of GCC
countries between an Indonesian house maid and her employer, but then she went to talk
about how the treatment in some Middle Eastern countries arent good towards their house
maids and that might be the main reason for the ban. Later I asked her what does she think
made the Indonesian government to back away from the decision? She said that in her
opinion most Indonesian house maids income comes from working in the Middle East, so
this might have forced the Indonesian government to back away from their decision. Her
answer made me think why didnt she say anything about the treatment towards the house
maids? Whether if it changed to be better or was still the same. I thought maybe she didnt
want to make any assumptions since she might not know what was the actual reason that
made the Indonesian government to back away from the decision.

Conclusion
In this research, Ive learned a lot about how Indonesians think about coming to work here,
and what are the assumptions that they have about us. Also, Ive learned more about their
ways of communicating with each other, and how those ways help creating an image of
what working in Qatar looks like to other Indonesians. I was trying to highlight how people
we encounter every day thinks about us, in ways that we dont usually think about. And how
the treatment that they get was bad enough to make the government ban them from
working in those countries. And how this step has made many people to change their way of
behavior toward house maids. Usually house maids dont complain or speak up and say
what they are feeling or thinking of, in this research I wanted to know more about their
thoughts and see those problems from their perspective.