Thursday, June 30, 2011

Saudis and their poor maids

This Indonesian maid's employer claimed, in court, that these wounds were self-inflicted.

  1. Saudis hire foreigners to do their dirty work.
  2. Over 1.5 million Filipinos and over a million Indonesians work in Saudi Arabia.  Many are maids.
  3. The maids send hundreds of millions of dollars home in remittances.
  4. Many maids are abused by their employers.
  5. An Indonesian maid, pushed to the brink of sanity (not that that is an excuse), killed her employer with a meat cleaver.
  6. Said maid is beheaded with a sword.  The authorities don't bother to inform the maid's family about the execution until after the deed.
  7. The Indonesian and Filipino governments ask the Saudi government to provide more employee protections and to impose a higher minimum wage (to $400 a month).
  8. Saudi Arabia stops issuing work visas to Filipinos and Indonesians.
The Arab Spring/Summer couldn't arrive in Saudi any sooner.

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