ARAB NEWS – EDITORIAL: It is estimated that there are two million working in homes in the Kingdom
Reports about maids all too regularly hit the headlines in this paper and others in the Kingdom. There are stories about maids who are abused, maids who are kept locked up or unpaid for months, even years. There are stories about maids who run away, or who have tricked or cheated their employers. Likewise, there are complaints about the costs of bringing a maid into the country. There are reports, too, of other countries being whipped up into a frenzy of concern about the treatment of maids in Saudi Arabia and their threats to stop them coming in future or imposing conditions about their employment contracts, including demands to know details about the families they are going to, their financial position, a description of the house, the number of rooms, photos of the wife and husband. Regularly, too, there are reports about new sources of maids — from Cambodia, Vietnam, indeed anywhere they can be found. The fact is that Saudi Arabia has become over-reliant on maids. » | Editorial | Tuesday, April 26, 2011
