It’s good to see that someone in Saudi Arabia is willing to tell the truth about how badly foreign domestic staff are generally treated there. - ©Mark
SAUDI GAZETTE: WITH a shake in her hands she struggled to hide, she put down the tray of beautifully arranged cookies on the table, followed by a sparkling clean tea pot and cups.
“New maid,” the guests asked their hosts.
“Yes, she just arrived here a couple of days ago,” said the host.
“Thank you,” said the guest’s wife to the apparently terrified maid.
“Those are delicious-looking cookies. What’s your name?”
The maid, taken aback with a question she never saw coming, looked at the guest and turned her gaze down to the floor.
“It’s OK, tell her,” said her mistress.
“Fatima,” her barely perceptible voice finally came while she shivered.
“Is anything wrong?” the guest asked.
Both the hosts smiled. “Fatima, it’s OK. Those are our friends,” the mistress told her.
Obviously reassured, but without uttering a single syllable, Fatima made for the kitchen.
“Is she OK?” asked the female guest.
After a brief pause, the mistress told her guests Fatima was a runaway maid. The guests asked their hosts whether hiring a runaway made [sic] could invite trouble with the law.
“No amount of trouble can match what she’s been through,” said the mistress.
She went on to tell her guests about Fatima’s story. She had been brought into the Gulf country as a maid by a family in another city. For months, her former mistress beat her, overworked her, had her do the cooking and the laundry for her eight children, never gave her a day off, and, over and above all that, she never paid her a dime.
But her troubles didn’t end there. The mistress’s eldest son tried to rape her more than once, and her eldest daughter would abuse her and call her names on a whim. When she complained to her master and mistress, they threw her out of the household with nothing but the clothes on her back.
The story of Fatima is the same one as hundreds, if not thousands, of domestic workers who have to deal with similar abuses in the Kingdom and elsewhere in the GCC. They have nowhere to go to, and no law protects them with adequate forcefulness that can relieve their pain and suffering. Our [Saudi’s] Bad Image: We’re Responsible >>> By Shady N. Janzeir | June 11, 2008
SAUDI GAZETTE:
Housemaid with ‘Torture’ Wounds Dies in Hospital >>> | June 12, 2008
BBC:
Qatari Law ‘Will Protect’ Maids >>> | June 17, 2008
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Dust Jacket Hardcover, direct from the publishers
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