Montgomery Domestic Workers Plead for Help

[MountainLaurel]

And they say slavery was outlawed in this country?!

When Gloria Ramos took a job as a live-in nanny for a Rockville family last year, she was told she would earn $200 a week to care for three children. But Ramos, who emigrated from Ecuador five years ago, suddenly realized that caring for children was the easy part of her job.

She said she was forced to cook daily for seven members of the family. She found herself working as late as 3 a.m. to finish all her tasks. To make matters worse, her promised weekly paycheck often didn't materialize.

Three months later, Ramos quit. "I was tired of so much abuse," Ramos, 25, told a Montgomery County Council committee yesterday.

Immigrant advocates say there are hundreds of other women in Montgomery County who are too scared, poor or naive to follow Ramos's path, making them in effect modern-day slaves. Often fearful of being deported or unemployed, these women endure exhausting work hours and, in some cases, physical and mental abuse to keep their jobs.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6246-2005Feb7.html

[Sugarbleus]

1. I say we ought to drive the rich and insensitive greedy

bastards into hell!!

[MountainLaurel]

2. I'm all for an uprising

But the fact of the matter is that in a large number of these cases, the legal system can't do anything because diplomats are involved. This is a major problem in the DC area.

[Biased Liberal Media]

3. You know...I hate to admit it

but the more and more I hear stories like this, the more I hate this country. It honestly does NOT surprise me, but I still can't believe it (if that makes any sense at all).

Furthermore, I hate the rich in this country- the rich that exploit the poor so they can have their houses cleaned, keep their money in their pocketbooks, and have everything they want- while the poor slave away for them and starve, suffer and even die to make ends meet.

THe more and more I read in the forum, the more I believe I need to stay out of it, because my blood just boils reading this crap. I want to make a difference, but no one hears us. Not even the democrats!!!! Where are they?? They're too busy kissing *'s ass!

Edited: We need a socialist nation. We need to insure people have enough money to live on, food on their table, and proper health care. But if you say the word SOCIALISM anywhere in the US, people jump all over your back like it's a terrible thing. How is socialism terrible??? Capitalism is horrible! it's greed and it shows no care whatsoever for citizens of the country.

[Sugarbleus]

4. Couldn't have said it better...

It's a crying shame, really.

Frankly, I have sort of been feeling like we ARE in a civil war; a "cold" civil war, so to speak.

I am completely gobsmacked when I look and really SEE/witness the attitudes of what I formerly called "My Fellow Americans". I DON'T KNOW THESE PEOPLE ANYMORE!

While I'd wish it so, I cannot imagine this country ever becoming ONE again.

I simply adore the society I grew up in. I love our music (Motown especially), double dating at lovers lane, "american graffiti", our movies, our county fairs, our proms, the hot popping tar on the back roads in the midwest in summertime, the fireflys in summer out there, our beaches and surfing, our national parks and camping out ... all the things that endeared "our culture" to each of us. But, the "lights" have gone out on all of it for me. I don't want to be here but I can't get out.

With the exception of Rwanda and the Sudan, I feel like I'm living in hell.

[Megahurtz]

5. And you said it all, Sugarbleus

You've definitely said it all.