Content provided in partnership with
Maids, Slaves, and Prisoners: To be employed in a Saudi home - forced servitude of women in Saudi Arabia and in homes of Saudis in US
National Review, Feb 24, 2003 by Joel Mowbray
One night in 1998, "Saida," a young Filipina, was carried bloody and unconscious into a hospital emergency room. The Saudi man who took her there was not a Good Samaritan; he was her rapist. He was also a good friend of the Saudi couple who employed her as a domestic servant. When her employers learned of the rape, they rushed to the hospital-not to help her, but to whisk her out before she could incriminate their friend. They took her back into their abusive custody, where she was to see the rapist again.
- Most Popular Articles in News
- The Ten Best Laptop bags
- Tata plans cheapest-ever car for Indian market
- GLOBALIZATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT OF THE THIRD WORLD
- Corn is good for you; Corn is not only a tasty treat, but also a cereal that ...
- THE 50 BEST STYLISH HANDBAGS TO CARRY
- More »
This horror story took place not in Saudi Arabia, but in northern Virginia. Saida was relatively fortunate, in that her ordeal happened in the U.S.: When she escaped a year later, there were places where she could take refuge-something that would have been virtually impossible in Saudi Arabia. But Saida is not the only woman to be trapped and abused in a Saudi household in America. NR has spoken with a dozen such women (or, in three of the cases, their friends or attorneys), and all agree that their situations were not isolated incidents. Saudi culture, the women explain, includes dominance and abuse-and that "lifestyle" is brought to the U.S. in Saudis' baggage.
A hypothetical, but typical, tale: A woman from Indonesia comes to Saudi Arabia with the promise of $800 a month-to her, a veritable fortune-to care for several children. When she arrives, she is forced to surrender her passport to her Saudi employers-a practice protected by Saudi law-and she is immediately told that she will be responsible for cooking and cleaning as well. She earns only $200 per month, if she receives any money at all. When she gets to the house, she is forced to work 16-or more-hours a day, and her employers occasionally beat her. When there is no work left to do at this house, she is passed off like mere property to the employers' friends and relatives. Through either psychological abuse-such as being told that she will be arrested if she escapes-or being literally locked in, she is rendered unable to flee to freedom. The U.S. State Department knows that this forced servitude of women takes place in the homes of Saudis even on American soil-and yet refuses to take measures to combat it.
Tens of thousands of women are abused in Saudi Arabia each year. According to the Saudi government, some 19,000 domestic servants-almost exclusively foreign women working in Saudi Arabia as maids-escaped from Saudi homes in the twelve months prior to March 2001; the real figure is likely far higher, because the government statistic counts only those women who go to government-run shelters for "runaway" domestics. But even aside from the fact that women new to the country probably don't know the whereabouts of these shelters, the options presented to the women at the shelters are not particularly attractive. As a Saudi official explains, "The ministry provides them with food and shelter until their cases are settled by either returning them to sponsors or deporting them to their home country." In other words, the trip to the shelter results in either a return to the abusive employer, or swift deportation without receiving back pay.
More than 8 million of Saudi Arabia's 21 million residents are foreign nationals who work in largely menial or blue-collar positions. About 1 million work as domestics, such as gardeners and maids. The vast majority of the 400,000 maids are women from Asia, with most of them hailing from extremely poor countries. Women who have slim job prospects at home respond to agency-placed ads promising relatively large salaries to work in Saudi Arabia. Even though Saudi abuse of domestics is well known in these poorer countries, the women still go to the Gulf nation because-explains the Heritage Foundation's Paolo Pasicolan-"the income disparity is so huge that many women believe it is worth the risk."
Saudi Arabia abolished slavery in 1962, but it treats domestic servants in much the same way fugitive-slave laws treated blacks in pre-Civil War America. Saudi newspapers run bounty ads announcing the "escape" of domestics and requesting the help of fellow Saudis in the return of this "property." Women who do not find their way to government-run shelters-themselves viewed by human-rights experts as largely a PR ploy-face a harsh fate. Notes Amnesty International's Brian Evans: "Women who go to the police station seeking help actually get locked in jail until their employers come and pick them up."
There is a loose-knit underground railroad that helps domestics flee abusive employers. According to women who have worked in Saudi Arabia, parallel structures operate within each ethnic community, meaning Filipinos help Filipinos, Indonesians help Indonesians, and so on. Those in the best position to provide assistance are drivers, who are the best-treated domestic workers and obviously have access to transportation. Women who worked in the kingdom say that one common escape route is to hide in the trunk of a car while being driven to a safe house or directly to a port city, such as Jeddah, where they can leave the country by boat. The Saudi press-which is largely controlled by the royal family-worries about the high rate of escape among domestic workers. One commentator, Abu Adel, wrote in the English- language daily Arab News that the solution is more stringent law enforcement: "The police and security departments need to give greater attention to the network of escaping maids."
