Trafficking of Women in the Oil-Rich Gulf States
By Dr. Ali Alyami
They call them housemaids, but in reality they are coerced into playing many roles, including those of concubines at the whims of their “masters,” sick or starving and at anytime of day or night. Hundreds of thousands of helpless and defenseless women are imported, mostly from poverty-stricken Arab, Asian and African countries, and are placed in homes throughout Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries, ostensibly as housemaids. There they are consistently treated with utter contempt and are subject to physical abuse, rape, and imprisonment. The New York Times reported in a 2005 article: “By one estimate, 15 to 20 percent of the 100,000 Sri Lankan women who leave each year for the Gulf return prematurely, face abuse or nonpayment of salary, or get drawn into illicit people trafficking schemes or prostitution.”
Upon the arrival of the housemaids in the Gulf States, their employers normally confiscate their passports so the women cannot escape when they become unable to handle the abuses at the hands of the men and women who employ or enslave them. They scrub floors, cook, wash clothes, take care of babies and are used for sexual pleasure. They are on call 24 hours a day, are hardly granted breaks or vacations, and do not receive benefits. They have to beg their employers for their meager salaries and in many cases they never receive any compensation.
When abused, these women have nowhere to go to seek justice, due to lack of due process in the Gulf States, especially in Saudi Arabia. Many of the maids are Christians and as such, have no chance of receiving justice in mostly Islamic courts whose religious judges consider them infidels. They do not receive help from the embassies of their homeland governments in the Gulf region because these embassies represent governments and businesses that are the recipients of generous aid and contracts from the Sheiks and Kings of the Arabian Peninsula.
The most repulsive aspect of this situation is not the cruel manner in which families in the Gulf States take advantage of the desperate situation of these housemaids, but rather that such behavior is tolerated by the Saudi government and the governments of other countries in the Gulf, as well as democratic governments and prominent NGOs around the world. The housemaids live under such unspeakable conditions because of political systems in countries such as Saudi Arabia, where the rule of law, independent judicial systems, and womens rights do not exist. One would think that in an age of technological, political, and economic advancement, such practices would be outlawed. The solution to these inhumane practices is the transformation of the institutions, especially in countries like Saudi Arabia that sanction such human suffering and degradation.
The Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia calls on the international community to demand respect for, and protection of, expatriate women who travel to new lands to seek employment and earn income to feed their starving children and aging parents. Until the authoritarian political, economic, social, and religious institutions in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States are replaced with democratic, enlightened and law-abiding systems, gross violations of basic human rights, disparagement of human dignity, manifestations of religious hate and contempt for others cultures and contributions will not only continue, but intensify in the name of defending Islam against the intrusion of Western infidels.
The international community has political, economic, and moral obligations to expose the cruel treatment of expatriate maids and other laborers in the oil-rich Gulf states. While there is a moral imperative to provide protection for maids and other expatriate workers in Saudi Arabia and its neighboring anti-democratic countries, it is also a necessity for global security and American national security. Children who grow up in environments that abuse women and deny people rights often internalize these abrogations of human rights. They are more likely to resort to violent actions against women and other people, in Saudi Arabia and around the world.
The United States and other civilized governments cannot continue to look the other way while defenseless maids and other expatriate workers are abused in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries that America calls its friends and allies.