On his trip to the Middle East, Cologne Archbishop Rainer Maria Cardinal Woelki also visits Caritas projects in Jordan. On the spot, the difficult situation of refugees and migrant workers is made clear to him in particular.
"They should see, learn and help," demands Sister Ursula. It does not fackelt long and comes directly to the point. She placed herself next to Cardinal Woelki, who is visiting Jordan as part of his Middle East trip. In Jordan, about 70.000 immigrants from Southeast Asia – most of them women – as domestic workers or in textile factories. Often they become victims of human rights violations, sometimes with dire consequences. Sister Ursula knows the world that the Archbishop of Cologne is seeing with his own eyes for the first time in Jordan. Woelki has now also brought time with him and an open ear for the concerns of the Catholic interlocutors, who help here on the ground, as best they can somehow.
The Salvatorian Sister Ursula Hopfensitz is one of these tireless helpers – and has been working here in Jordan for more than a decade. She not only tells of the refugees who have come by the hundreds of thousands across the border from Syria and Iraq, she also tells of migrants from Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Philippines, who are often completely forgotten here in the small country of Jordan: Young women who manage their lives as seamstresses or domestic workers. A seamstress earns just under 110 euros per month, and Sister Ursula knows exactly what that means: "This is modern slavery! Of course there are health and safety laws, but if they are not respected…". If you want to get rid of a domestic helper after 20 years, he said, it's enough to tell the police she stole. Already the woman from Sri Lanka finds herself in prison.
Detainees are "ransomed" with tickets to their home country
Together with her two fellow sisters and the support of the local Caritas and the Archdiocese of Cologne, Sister Ursula also organizes prison visits. When she brings imprisoned women a ticket to their home countries, authorities often let them go. Just recently, the dedicated sisters "ransomed" 70 prisoners with tickets. If they are young women, they may still be able to return to their families. The situation is different when a mother from Sri Lanka returns to her home country after more than 20 years of modern slave labor in Jordan. Just the other day Sister Ursula called such a crying woman – her own son had not taken in his mother because he supposedly did not even know her anymore. The worry lines on the Cardinal's forehead, to whom the Caritas staff had just given a vivid account of the misery in the refugee camps, seem to get a little deeper at this moment.
But Sister Ursula is not done yet. She then goes on to explain to the archbishop from wealthy Germany how globalization works today: "These poor women often work to exhaustion day after day, working overtime because they can then send a little more money to their families back home in Sri Lanka – and they work in companies that the Chinese have built up here in Jordan – and sew the same seam on blouses for 10 hours a day, which are then exported to the U.S!"But also from physical, psychological damage and sexual assaults straight with domestic servants the sister of the Salvatorianerorden can report. Woelki asks specifically and it becomes clear that the Archbishop of Cologne – despite the annual donation that his archdiocese transfers to the sisters and Caritas in Jordan – is already secretly asking himself how he can use his office to help here even more effectively.
Spring brings hope
"They should see, learn and help!", this three-step had demanded the sister from her visit. Already on the first day here behind the Jordan in the poor hinterland begins the lesson that Woelki has probably also prescribed for himself. The only hope is the tender first green of spring, which will grow some in the desolate muck of poverty, and the helpful smile of Sr. Ursula, who wants to help as long as she can here.