http://www.arabnews.com/?page=13§ion=0&article=111643&d=11&m=7&y=2008&pix=kingdom.jpg&category=Local%20Press
Wednesday 9 July 2008 (05 Rajab 1429)
Be nice to maids
Abdulrahman Al-Sadhan | Al-Watan -
Like many other writers, I have previously written about the
unfair treatment meted to housemaids in our society. The abuse begins with
having their salaries delayed for no reason and ends with either verbal or
physical abuse. I repeat what I have said previously: Such treatment is
uncivilized. We are indirectly harming the image of our country both morally
and politically.
This is especially the case when the media in some countries
view the Kingdom negatively and make a big deal out of this issue.
I am shocked at some of the stories that I hear and read
about in the press. Such stories prevent people from sleeping soundly; the
details are so bad that one cannot ascertain whether they are fiction or fact.
One of the stories that I heard concerns a maid who was
verbally and physically abused by her employer for several reasons. The family
finally decided to terminate her contract and deport her. Hours before she was
to leave, the maid devised a plan to take revenge on her employer.
As the maid left the home and got into her employer's vehicle
to go to the airport she claimed she had left something inside and said she
needed to return to get it. She then went inside and returned a few minutes
later. She then went to the airport with her employer and his wife, who did not
have the least inkling that the maid would do something terrible inside the
house.
When the couple returned home, they discovered their young
baby missing. They asked the child's grandmother, who lived with them, where he
was. She told them that the maid had told her that the parents wanted to take
him to the airport.
They then searched the house and found the child in the
bathtub dead. The maid had punished her employers by drowning their child.
Now let us reflect on this story from the moral perspective
and ask some serious questions. Would the maid have taken revenge if the mother
had not abused her?
I am not justifying her actions; I believe what she did was
cruel. However, an important question remains: Would she have done this if the
woman in the home had been nice to her from the beginning?
We have some people who believe that slavery still exists.
They unjustly treat people who were forced to come to serve them because of
their circumstances back home. They forget that maids are people just like
them. The poor conditions in their countries have forced them to leave their
children and loved ones and work abroad as maids.
Do they not deserve to be treated nicely? Do they need us to
make them suffer more? Why do we have to humiliate them?
The maids who work in the Kingdom are of different
backgrounds and cultures. How do we expect them to learn when they cannot
understand our requests simply because they speak a different language? When
they fail to understand us, we unleash our anger on them.
When employers are told that maids cannot understand their
language, they say, "Well the dumb maid cannot understand my language, what can
I do?"
However, the dumb employer forgets that the maid is human and
not an animal.
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