Remnants of systems employing servants overseas
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In reading Visram, I couldn't help but see the parallels between the treatment of ayahs and lascars and the present-day treatment of migrant workers/domestic workers in the Middle East (specifically the Gulf states, as well as Jordan and Lebanon). The legal framework that allows for the employment of migrant labourers in these states is known as the kafala (sponsorship) system, where employers 'sponsor' a worker from African and South Asian countries to come work in a Middle Eastern country. In practice, the system is filled with exploitation and the workers are often left with no job security, abuse, low wages, and no official papers to allow them a return home, as their passports are often confiscated upon arrival.
In the same way ayahs and lascars were left begging and 'destitute' in the streets of London, it is not rare to find migrant labourers in the streets of the Middle East, unable to find work and facing discrimination from employers.
On another note, I found it interesting that a servant like Abdul Karim gained the respect of the Queen herself and was not seen as simply property, but was even a teacher to a British monarch. The power dynamics of a relationship between servant/master that is also one of teacher/student is interesting to me, especially in the context of an empire as dehumanizing to South Asian as the British empire.
Also, the Visram reading's discussion of lodging houses that housed servants waiting for employment or passage to India is, perhaps, a previous version of the boarding houses in Cardiff, though there are obvious differences in the management of these two places. In the modern Middle East, non-profits and other organizations provide housing for workers who have been abandoned by their employer and some offer legal assistance in order to help them come back to their home countries.