Lola and Her Tormentor
A reporter who covers domestic labor in the Middle East tells of the women who are exploited there, and the women who do the exploiting.
This article is part of a series of responses to Alex Tizon’s Atlantic article “My Family’s Slave.” The full series can be found here.
AMMAN, Jordan—I got my first glimpse of what it’s like to be a Filipina migrant worker in Jordan on an October day in 2013, shortly after I’d moved to the region. I was walking down a street in western Amman when a police car pulled alongside me on the road, the officers inside rolling down their window and beckoning me to stop. A man slouched in the passenger’s seat looked me up and down, then said, “Where is your passport?”
I was confused. I’d left it at home, as usual, I told him. He said, “Where do you live?”
I beckoned in
