4 Dead Maids + 2 Illegitimate Children

Well, actually, only two are confirmed maids. Can't say we weren't warned. Ramadan starts in less than a week and housemaids, whose lives are already a pathetic existence, will be expected work around the clock. Many sponsors fear their maids will flee escape. If they don't escape before Ramadan, then they do their best to do so afterward. At least two have managed to "escape." Permanently. We can be assured that now two families are not scurrying around like chickens with their heads cut off looking for maids that they absolutely have to have and they are going to want them in place before September 22nd. Two of the deaths are "suspected suicides."

The first is a 34-year-old Ethiopian housemaid "who was found hanged." A police spokesperson said "Investigations were under way to determine the motive." Here. Let me help you with that: She was overworked and underpaid and just couldn't take it anymore. May she rest in peace.

The second is a Nepalese woman in her 30's, who was "also found dangling by the neck in her sponsor's house." Lovely description, isn't it? That is the best a staff writer could come up with? She deserves a whole lot more respect than that, if you ask me. May she rest in peace.

The third maid, in her 30's, and her approximately 19-month-old illegitimate child, a little girl, were found in a garbage container near a mall in Jeddah early yesterday morning. The article says, "It is possible that they were denied treatment in hospitals because of their illegal status and that their relatives were forced to dump their bodies into the garbage container." I suppose it is also possible that they were denied basic human decency and that the woman, a raped housemaid who became pregnant with her sponsor's child, was killed along with her child by her sponsor's wife out of jealousy and for revenge. Or, something like that.

And the fourth. An East Asian woman [read: housemaid] and a child "were found in a suitcase." Another raped housemaid with an illegitimate child? We used to have some of those big suitcases. When airlines changed their rules about size and baggage restrictions we sold them for a mere fraction of what we paid for them. Those are the suitcases though, that would be perfect for this kind of "disposal." You could easily fit a small housemaid and her child in one. "Investigators were trying to determine the identities of the victims and the cause of deaths." That shouldn't be too awfully difficult. Everyone that comes into this country is finger-printed [I had to be fingerprinted again two weeks ago when I went to get my new I.D.]. Are their "purple marks" around their necks? They were strangled. If there are no "purple marks" then they were poisoned. By a jealous wife who wanted revenge because her husband raped the maid and got her pregnant. Case solved.