166 Between Private and Public
nationalism and the modernization of the nation-state that, especially in
the case of Turkey, strongly propagated women’s presence in the public.
Simultaneously, in contrast to the domestic slaves in the Ottoman Empire,
the adopted daughters of republican Turkey were more likely to be kept
inside private homes, as their employers claimed that they needed to be
controlled and could not be trusted on their own. Indeed the configu-
ration in which present-day migrant domestic workers find themselves
is rather similar to that of the evlatlıks. Their restricted access to public
space coincides with the increased participation of local middle-class
women in the public, be it through formal employment in the professions,
through participation in NGOs or women’s associations, or, under condi-
tions of gender segregation, through their presence in female semipublic
spaces. It is the very presence of migrant domestic workers in the home
that enables their employers to have such a public presence.
The mediated presence of domestics
NGOs are not only (semi-) public spaces where migrant domestic work-
ers can meet and find some privacy. Many of them are also involved in
debates about migrant domestic workers that are often mass-mediated.
Such debates shift the status of migrant domestic workers from one of
absence into one of presence, although more as objects of debate than as
participants in such debates.
nternational NGOs and human rights groups are major actors in I
making public the problems and abuse some migrant domestic work-
ers face. The reports these groups produce often include specific cases
of abused migrant domestic workers, the most shocking ones finding
their way to the Internet, onto television screens and into newspapers
worldwide.^42 As a result migrant domestic workers are first and foremost
portrayed as victims, duped by agents and exploited and mistreated by
employers. While dramatic stories of victimhood generally have strong
appeal for media audiences, cases of migrant domestic workers seem to
attract far more attention than those of local domestics.
f the development of new technologies has greatly speeded up I
the circulation of information and images of migrant domestic workers,