http://www.arabnews.com/?page=13§ion=0&article=111643&d=15&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.
