Domestic Dilemma

Is it just being reported more often, or is The Sandbox experiencing a bit more trouble - on the domestic front - than one would expect? The advent of the internet has opened up what was once a very closed society to allow others to see that all is not necessarily picture perfect...

Follow-ups to initial news reports rarely get published so we don't know what happens in many matters other than what is initially reported. And, if the local news channels report on the same matters and do do some follow-up, I wouldn't know - the stations are in Arabic and my Arabic is basic, at best. If I understood it better I'd be watching and listening to see what happens to all of the persons who are accused of abusing their household help. I think we all know, that for the most part, the scenarios go something like this: Maid dies, physical evidence in the form of marks and scars on the maids body supports that she was abused and / or tortured, at the very least, mistreated, but the employer denies any wrongdoing and tells authorities that all of the bruises and tell-tale marks on the maid's body are the result of self-inflicted wounds - you know, a piano falling on the maid, the maid running backward into an iron, things like that. The dead maid's body is buried - if her family cannot afford to transport it home - and the employer gets off scott-free. Rarely - and I do mean rarely - do we hear of employers actually being held accountable for their misdeed when it comes to the household help. Perhaps authorities, with this case, will start making examples of some of these employers who, in my opinion, are so undeserving of the help from another with the mistreatment and abuse they inflict upon them. Another disposable maid. An Asian woman, whose body showed "signs of old and recent bruising." Her employer - a woman - has been detained by police after the maid died from "possible repeated physical abuse." [Just let one more person in the States scream that they deserve reparations! Tell them they can be sent back to the African country of their choice where they can put themselves in a position of living in such poverty they are forced to sign up at the local recruitment agency where they will be sent, as an imported worker, to the Middle East. They will learn that slavery is alive and thriving, and what it is to be abused...]

Isn't it telling, that there are so many housemaids detained at "social welfare centers?" Do they have "social welfare centers" in other countries? The Saudi government is going to start deporting housemaids who are detained, at these centers, "whose cases and claims against their employers are not resolved within 25 days." A welfare officer at the Asian embassy has "praised the Ministry of Interior for this humanitarian gesture." You know what would be humanitarian? Not abusing the maids in the first place, and paying them their due on a monthly basis. The Saudi government will pick up the tab for deporting the maids back to their home-country. The initiation of this move is due to the fact that "social centers are always crowded... At the Dammam social welfare center... there are always over 200 detained housemaids awaiting deportation." Well, then. Problem solved. It is a virtual revolving door of housemaids!

There are some 20,000 housemaids slaves which are recruited from from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Bangladesh, India, Ethiopia and Eriteria EVERY MONTH. Every month. 240,000 housemaids slaves per year! Is that figure just astounding?!! It is to me. And that will be expanded as The Sandbox "wants to expand recruitment of housemaids from various countries including Vietnam and Nepal." Running out of potential candidates in the countries previously listed, maybe? Or perhaps word has gotten out that coming to The Sandbox to work might just not be all that it may once have been touted to be... I find it almost incredulous that a country with a population of 25,000,000 relies so heavily on the domestic help that it imports. Using basic math - for only the last four years - and lets say that 160,000 housemaids slaves have been imported - that is 640,000 - and add that to the 240,000 that have been imported for the fifth year - that is 72,000 housemaids slaves. Figure that the average family consists of one husband, two wives and six children - that is a household of nine - that is 2,777,777 familes. Again - basic math - one out of every three households has a maid! Consider that in this country only a small percentage of women are out every day in the work force - they cannot drive and thus are pretty much confined to the house. What are these women doing every day that they MUST have a full-time housemaid slave? I can appreciate having some household help - I have household help. Part-time. Four mornings a week. Good grief if Inam was underfoot seven days a week for sixteen hours a day - man-oh-man - I can appreciate whole-heartedly how it is that domestic help is abused. I'm sure I'd be beating him or doing something to knock some sense into him. [The man truly has zero common sense and how he wasn't culled from the herd at birth is a miracle. In his defense, he does a good job cleaning our bathrooms and mopping the floors. I should probably limit his work to that - and maybe cleaning the patio furniture.]

The article, which is here, says, "In recent months the number of housemaids running away from their employers or seeking help and protection of the police has been increasing." Hmmph. Wonder why that is. And, now, some genius has decided that the problem will all go away if the housemaids are simply deported after spending twenty-five days in a social welfare center. Talk about sweeping the problem under the rug... Certainly does not fix the problem - but if you deport "it" - then there is no problem, right?