Filipino domestic workers ‘entering a lottery’ of abuse and exploitation in Saudi Arabia

A year after Amnesty International documented widespread abuse of Kenyan domestic workers in Saudi Arabia, it has released a new briefing which reveals that Filipino women are facing many of the same abuses, including being overworked, exploited and subjected to degrading treatment, as well as sexual assault in some cases.

The report, Once we step in their homes, we are no longer human”: Testimonies of Filipino women domestic workers in Saudi Arabia, documents the experiences of 19 Filipino women who returned from Saudi Arabia, mostly between 2023 and 2026.

In their interviews the women shared how, once inside their employer’s homes, the terms of their contracts no longer mattered, and they were left at the mercy of their employer’s unchecked authority.

The stories mirrored many elements of those of Kenyan women interviewed for an Amnesty report released in 2025. They were routinely deceived by recruiters about the nature of their work and subjected to gruelling and abusive conditions, as well as racial discrimination.

Employers rule the lives of domestic workers

In Saudi Arabia, migrant workers are still excluded from the national labour law and are instead governed by the 2023 Regulations for Domestic Workers. Although these are an improvement on earlier regulations, they still fail to afford them equal protection and fall short of international human rights and labour law and standards.

According to the testimonies, the women’s well-being was shaped far more by the employer’s will than by the contract they signed, or the laws and regulations meant to protect them.

Working hours stretched well beyond legal limits, from 14 up to 21 hours each day. Daily breaks were uncertain, while lunch breaks were non-existent. And for most, employers made it impossible to ever take a day off.

“I worked for two years straight without a day off,” said Adelina*. Joy* said that “working 20-hour days” was normal, while Gemma’s* workload was so intense that she reported:

the rest and eating time is just for 10 minutes.

Her employer would tell her repeatedly:

I brought you from your country, so I can do anything to you.

Other women said their employer made them work in multiple households, contrary to the terms of their employment agreements. Hana* had to work in five households:

including my employer’s, their mother’s, siblings’ and other relatives. I would do the work in all five houses. Every day I would move from one household to another, all seven days of the week.

We can’t escape the abuse

The lack of freedom of movement, exacerbated by widespread passport confiscation, legal restrictions on them leaving the country without permission, and unfamiliarity with the local language and systems, meant many of the domestic workers interviewed were effectively dependent on their employer, not only for work, but also for their ability to return home, even when escaping abuse.

Cleo* arrived in Saudi Arabia in late 2023. After months of preventing her from leaving the house, Cleo’s employer began depriving her of food by locking the fridge and accusing her of theft.

Cleo asked her employer to send her back to her recruitment agency so she could go home. This process wasn’t straightforward and involved further inhuman and degrading treatment, including an intrusive search by her employer to check that she had not taken anything from the house. Cleo said:

It was so easy to leave the Philippines, but it was so difficult to go back. Before I got to leave my employer’s house, they stripped me naked, inspected every corner of my body.

Several women described being subjected to sexual harassment or assault, often carried out when they were left alone with their male employer or another male relative in the household. Isabel*, who was made to work in both her employer’s house and the employer’s mother’s, said:

One day I was pulling the comforter and there he was, in the bed, under the comforter, masturbating and calling me to lie beside him. I ran out of the room and went to the rooftop, where I would always hide from him… Sometimes I felt like I preferred staying at the [employer’s] mother’s house. The work there was too much and very difficult, but at least I felt safer.

All allegations of abuse must be investigated and justice secured for victims

The testimonies from Kenyan and Filipino domestic workers shared a common thread. For many women, abuse was experienced as a normal part of being a domestic worker in Saudi Arabia.

The kafala system also continues to bind migrant workers to their employer, who acts as their official “sponsor” (or kafeel) from the moment they enter the country and throughout their employment.

Although reforms have been made to the system, domestic workers have not benefited from many of these, and key exploitative elements of kafala remain in practice for all migrant workers.

Marta Schaaf of Amnesty International said:

These stories are not isolated cases. The harrowing testimonies paint a worrying picture of ongoing state-enabled exploitation in a country with over four million domestic workers.

It’s clear that for far too many workers, serious abuses and intimidation come with taking a job in Saudi Arabia. In many of the most serious cases, the abuses domestic workers face amount to forced labour and may also constitute human trafficking for the purpose of labour exploitation.

From Kenya to the Philippines and beyond, the rights of women who travel to work in Saudi Arabia are being exploited time and time again, facilitated by continued government inaction and a labour system which fosters exploitation and perpetuates systemic racism.

Taking a job should not mean domestic workers are entering a lottery, where their rights, safety and freedom are left to chance.

We are calling on the Saudi Arabian government to immediately investigate all allegations of abuse, including sexual violence, and bring perpetrators to justice, implement effective inspections, and fully dismantle the kafala sponsorship system.

The Philippines and other states sending workers abroad also have an obligation to protect their nationals from human rights abuses.

Amnesty is also calling for domestic workers to be brought under the labour law to guarantee equal rights, and enforce existing protections effectively, including by penalising abusive employers.

*Names changed for protection purposes

Featured image via the Canary