http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=61685&d=6&m=4&y=2005
Wednesday, 6, April, 2005 (26, Safar, 1426)
New Measures Needed to Protect the Interests of Housemaids
Raid Qusti, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The story of an Indonesian maid, Nour Miyati, whose gangrenous fingers
were amputated after she was brutally beaten and locked in a bathroom by her
employer, should have made shock waves in the Kingdom's press but it didn't.
Had this barbarity happened to any other person - maid or not - anywhere else
in the world, it would have resulted in a journalistic frenzy and would surely
have been front-page news in most newspapers. For some inexplicable reason, the
story was buried on the inside pages of a handful - not even all - the
Kingdom's Arabic dailies. The implication was clear that the story did not
deserve much attention; only the Kingdom's English papers played it up.
As with the story of Rania Al-Baz, the Saudi TV announcer who was
brutally beaten and strangled by her husband, the maid's story represents just
a few of the hundreds of cases that never get into the media or receive any
attention at all. Nour Miyati is not alone out there. There are thousands of
other housemaids who are subjected to torture, violence and injustice in the
Kingdom.
If we look at the official figures from the Indonesian Embassy this year,
over 800 cases of Indonesian maids being abused or harassed have been reported
to the embassy. These of course are the cases that the embassy is aware of. One
cannot imagine how large the number would be if it included all the maids who
have been abused and mistreated.
There are those who suffer in silence and cannot get to the embassy to
seek justice. There are plenty of inhuman employers in the Kingdom who think
that by employing a maid, they have gained a slave to do their bidding at any
time, in any place, under any circumstances. If one looks carefully at the
treatment of maids in Saudi households, a sad story will be revealed.
To begin with, maids who are brought to the Kingdom by recruiting offices
never sign a contract in which the first party (the sponsor) promises to pay
the salary on time at the end of the month and to treat her in a humane way,
not violating Islamic principles, and not to ask her to work beyond a certain
number of hours that both the sponsor and the maid agree on. The signed
contract should also state that the sponsor must give the maid a day-off every
week and provide her access to a telephone should she wish to seek the advice
or help of her consulate or embassy. The contract should also make clear
exactly what the maid's responsibilities are. The contract - with the
signatures of both sponsor and maid - should then be approved by the maid's
embassy where a copy will be on file and where the sponsor's contact numbers
are listed. The maid should also be given the numbers of her consulate and
embassy. Further, the embassy of the maid's country should establish a direct
link with Saudi authorities in case of an emergency, violation or injustice
which results in the sponsor's being called in and interrogated by the
authorities.
What happens in reality, however, is entirely different. The employer
approaches the recruitment office asking for a maid of a particular age and
nationality. After filling in the required forms, submitting the necessary
papers and paying the charges, the maid arrives at the airport after a couple
of months. The office then contacts the sponsor and asks him to pick up the
maid after signing a few papers.
The maid arrives at a strange house in a strange country not knowing what
rights she has or whether she is entitled to object to certain conditions. All
she knows is what she was told by the recruiter in her own country: That she
will be working for a Saudi family and that her salary will be SR800 a month.
Beyond that, she has been told nothing.
The maid is then in the sponsor's house at the mercy of him and his
family. Without no contact numbers and no contract stating her duties and
responsibilities or the duties and responsibilities of her sponsor, her
happiness or sadness depends on whether her employers fear God and whether they
treat her humanely.
If her employer is just, she is paid on time and treated as a member of
the family. If not, she will beg for her salary and might end up working 20
hours a day in the most oppressive and inhuman environment. She might be
treated as a slave. Her suffering, most likely, will be in silence; caught
between being patient and thinking of her loved ones back home for whom she is
enduring all this, she has no time to seek dignity or justice.
Unless the Ministry of Labor or the Recruitment Office and the embassies
of countries from which Saudis bring maids draft a new law under which a
contract must be signed fulfilling the conditions I have mentioned above, the
injustice toward maids in the Kingdom will continue.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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