Saudi Arabian families are abusing female migrant workers to the point of slavery and Riyadh needs to respond with sweeping labor and justice reforms, a major rights group said yesterday.
US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a new report released in Indonesia that many Saudis believed they “owned” their foreign domestic workers and treated them like slaves.
“Saudis treat them like chattel, slaves, like cattle. A domestic worker is like a slave and slaves have no rights,” the report quoted a “senior consular official” with a foreign embassy in the kingdom as saying.
The 133-page report entitled ‘As If I Am Not Human’: Abuses against Asian Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia, was compiled after two years of research, the group said.
The work included 42 interviews with domestic workers, officials, and labor recruiters in Saudi Arabia and the workers’ countries of origin, it said.
Out of 86 domestic workers interviewed, HRW concluded that 36 faced abuse that amounted to forced labor, trafficking or slavery-like conditions.
Some of the cases were horrific.
“For one year and five months … no salary at all. I asked for money and they would beat me, or cut me with a knife, or burn me,” Sri Lankan domestic worker Ponnamma S was quoted as telling the rights group.
Haima G, a Filipina domestic worker, said her employer called her into his bedroom one day soon after she had arrived and told her she had been “bought” for 10,000 riyals (US$2,700).
“The employer raped me many times. I told everything to madam. The whole family, madam, the employer, they didn’t want me to go. They locked the doors and gates,” she was quoted as saying.
Nour Miyati, an Indonesian domestic worker, had her fingers and toes amputated as a result of daily beatings and starvation. Charges against her employers were dropped after a three-year legal process, despite a confession.
“Employers often take away passports and lock workers in the home, increasing their isolation and risk of psychological, physical, and sexual abuse,” HRW said in a statement.
It said Saudi labor laws excluded domestic workers, so many were forced to work 18 hours a day, seven days a week — often without pay — for years. Sleeping quarters included closets and bathrooms.
Nisha Varia, HRW’s senior women’s rights researcher, said that in the worst cases the women were “treated like virtual slaves.”
The kingdom’s kafala or “sponsorship” system gave employers control over the workers’ visas, meaning they could refuse to allow domestic staff to change jobs or leave the country.
Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Nepal accounted for the bulk of the women, thousands of whom sought shelter each year at the Saudi social affairs ministry or at their respective embassies.
Varia said conditions in the Sri Lankan and Indonesian shelters were “horrific.”
“I was shocked — you have 200 women in a room that should be for maybe 50 people at the maximum,” she told a press conference.
Few of the abusers were ever brought to justice as migrant women who dared to complain risked counter-charges of adultery, witchcraft or moral degradation, punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment and 490 lashes.
The government has spent years considering labor reform “without taking any action,” Varia said.
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) purge of his most senior general is driven by his effort to both secure “total control” of his military and root out corruption, US Ambassador to China David Perdue said told Bloomberg Television yesterday. The probe into Zhang Youxia (張又俠), Xi’s second-in-command, announced over the weekend, is a “major development,” Perdue said, citing the family connections the vice chair of China’s apex military commission has with Xi. Chinese authorities said Zhang was being investigated for suspected serious discipline and law violations, without disclosing further details. “I take him at his word that there’s a corruption effort under
RSS