The Maid - Unholy Acts In The Holiest Place (2)

Two female migrant workers in Saudi Arabia who are suffering permanent injuries are currently being treated in their hometowns in West Nusa Tenggara.

60 more housemaids from Dompu in West Nusa Tenggara are awaiting to be sent home.

25-year old Yanti Yusepa from West Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara went to Saudi Arabia on August 29 and returned to Indonesia on October 6, paralysed from the waist down after jumping from a second-story window to get away from what she called chronically abusive employers.
She is waiting for her insurance payout: If there is.
Within the short period, she worked for three different families in Saudi Arabia, fleeing from the first two after they starved and physically abused her.
The third family was most cruel - the daughters would burn her with a hot iron while their mother would beat her.
The abuse on her drove her to jump from second floor window.
“Not a single person was willing to help me when they saw me fall.”

According to her, at least 26 more have also been abused by their employers, in some cases sexually.

27-year-old Selvia from Sumbawa, a district of West Nusa Tenggara, returned home in July 2010.
She worked for her employer as a domestic worker in Nabuk.
But the employer made her doing a back-breaking work.
She did just that: Lifting heavy gas canisters.
It broke her back.
It takes her a great effort to bend, or to walk.
And, Selvia is unable to walk properly.
She is partially paralysed since 2007.

Warni Binti Mahrip, a domestic helper, died after she fell from the upper floor of her employer’s home, also in Tabuk, on June 4.

And Nurul Binti Muhtar Lano, died four months later in October, due to illness.

The bodies wil be sent back to Lombok, in West Nusa Tenggara.

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Such stories are common, but only receive sporadic attention.
The recently discovered horrific abuse of Sumiati, from West Nusa Tenggara too, let others knew that now, more than 350 domestic workers from West Nusa Tenggara are currently stationed overseas and may be facing abuse or inhumane working conditions.

About 52 workers from the province were living under a Saudi bridge, awaiting repatriation.
Sumiati, an 18-year old girl led an unusual protest.
It even made Saudi Arabia's labour ministry bowed to say a very rare sorry.

West Nusa Tenggara, is the second biggest district to send workers abroad after West Java.
But in terms of percentage, it is the biggest.

Many women in West Nusa Tenggara, especially in remote areas, are still unaware of their rights as housewives, and the condition is concerning, a local family welfare activist said.
They are in a weak position in the family and had no choice but accept their husbands' ill treatment.
Many had been used as 'capital' by their husbands who send them to work abroad as migrant workers as house maids in Saudi Arabia and use their wives` monthly income even to get married to another woman.

Some, after all the money sent home, they were divorced by their husbands.
They are often defenseless.
They are unaware of their rights as housewives, or not courageous enough to take actions.


Now, West Nusa Tenggara, one of the 33 Indonesian provinces, had banned recruitment of its residents for work in Saudi Arabia following Sumiati's high-profile abuse case.
Meanwhile, it is in the process of providing halfway house to shelter abused maids hailed from West Nusa Tenggara.
The house will also serve as a pre-departure centre for future domestic maids.

The Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration is likely to ban parents with children under the age of 5 from working abroad, unless they can show proof that their children’s nutritional needs would be taken care of.
It was noted that children suffering from malnutrition tended to come from the families of migrant workers.

These migrant workers mothers left their children in the care of elderly relatives who often failed to provide adequate nutrition for the children.
The kids were more likely to be fed the same food that the elders were eating themselves, which is lacking in the nutrients required for growing children.

Last year, data collected from 10 districts in West Nusa Tenggara recorded 756 cases of children suffering from malnutrition, including severe forms of protein-energy malnutrition.
25 have since died.
There were 926 cases recorded during 2009 and 1,207 in 2008.

United Nations Children’s Fund report in January 2010, found that at least 7.6 million Indonesian children suffered from stunted growth, a primary manifestation of malnutrition.
Worldwide, Indonesia ranked the fifth largest number of children under the age of 5 suffering from stunted growth.

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On November 26, An Indonesian maid of two weeks had suffered broken bones after jumping three floors down from her employer's house in Al-Salam, Northern Jeddah.
Then she hid herself under a parked car.
In a police report, her employer had, two days earlier, intended to return her to the agency for her unsatisfactory work performance.

A 29-year-old Indonesian maid is currently in intensive care after jumping from the third floor of a building while trying to run away from her sponsor of three months in the Al-Kakiya district of Mecca.
She is thought to have fractured some bones and suffered internal bleeding.

On December 3, a maid, said to be Indonesian, fell to her death from the window of a third-floor apartment in Jeddah.
She had attempted to escape using a rope of knotted clothes.
The maid's body is currently at the Forensic Medicine Administration for further forensic examination.

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Maid Abuse Rampant In Region, Says Magazine

JEDDAH: A Saudi women’s magazine has published an article highlighting the abuse of maids and the need to find solutions to the problem, not just in the Kingdom but across the region.

According to the article in Sayidaty magazine (a sister publication of Arab News), many housemaids across the region are abused in a variety of ways from physical abuse to not being provided with food. It also adds that such maids have no rights and that they hardly see justice except when a major development occurs.
“Local newspapers have recently been publishing a lot about maid abuse in the Kingdom and this is where we decided to not just write about the horror stories but also find solutions to the problem,” said Mona Siraj, managing editor of Sayidaty magazine in Jeddah.
“Our responsibility as a magazine that cares for social issues is to give our readers the perfect and real picture … in addition to allowing the authorities and human rights’ bodies to respond,” she added.
According to the article, there are some 2 million housemaids in the Kingdom, 660,000 in Kuwait and 79,000 in Bahrain. In the United Arab Emirates, housemaids outnumber families. It said in Egypt there are 177 recruitment offices, of which only three are legal.
“Until now, there aren’t any regulation that protects both the maid and the employer and we are demanding this to assure security for both sides,” said Siraj. “I believe that these problems should be out in the public to spread awareness in society. We are giving the opportunity through the magazine to both sides to know their rights.”
In Saudi Arabia, a maid had her lips cut out and abused in other ways for misbehaving. Maids are beaten with electric cables for breaking cups in Egypt, thrown out in the streets in Bahrain and locked indoors in the Emirates, reports Sayidaty.

Source: Arab News - January 19, 2011

 

The Maid - Unholy Acts In The Holiest Place

The three-year jail sentence given to Zanuba Farooq As-Shawaf, a Saudi woman for brutally torturing her 18-year old maid, Sumiati Binti Salan Mustapa was "too light".
It did not fulfill a sense of justice.
She was sentenced to three years jail two Sundays ago by a judge in Madinah from maximum verdict of 15 years.

Sumiati was hospitalised in November with severe injuries.
Indonesian consulate will be filing an objection to the judge's verdict and pressing for a harsher sentence considering the extraordinary consequences that the victim suffered.
Saudi Human Rights Agency had thrown its weight behind Sumiati demanded Islamic Shariah punishment towards the Saudi woman.

The 53-year-old widow employer, first claimed  that the wounds on the maid’s body were the result of a suicide attempt.
She insisted her innocence, denied inflicting the injuries on the maid, and intended an appeal.
But the judge said everybody knows from pictures that the maid must have been beaten by someone.

After her son who had earlier told the truth to the police, she later retracted her statements and admitted to torturing Sumiati with a hot iron.
Earlier, she even accused police of improper arresting of her - during the last three days of mourning period - four months ten days - of her husband's death.

Sumiati's parents were unable to support her and her four siblings after she graduated from high school.
So on July 18, with US$112 in her pocket, she left Dompu in West Nusa Tenggara with promised monthly salary of 800 Saudi riyals (US$213) for Saudi Arabia.
She intended to send money home for her family in a small fishing village.

But four months later, November 8, she landed in a private hospital in an unconscious state before being transferred to King Fahad Hospital in Medinah on Dec. 29, 2010 in a very serious condition.

Saudi newspapers then showed Sumiati's badly scarred face, her disappeared eyebrows and a cut near the eye, a burn and missing part of her upper lip.
She was frequently beaten with wood that had effect on her front teeth too.
There were scattered wounds on her cheeks, chin, forehead and nose.
Some parts of the skin on her head were removed.
She lost a lot of blood and suffered from malnutrition.

Sumiati is unable to understand Arabic or English.
Mother and daughter of her sponsor treated her very badly - the mother frequently beat her severely and burned her with a hot iron.
Sumiati had suffered "torture of an extraordinary nature" which left her with external and internal injures.
After underwent plastic surgery, her lungs needed operation too.
She was wounded from head to toe with body burned on many places, marks of old wounds and fractured pelvis.

Her health is vital as she is the key witness.
The girl made her first appearance in court to show the Saudi judge her scars from the assault.
Her middle finger was fractured and her legs were hardly moving.

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Traditionally, the Philippines has been a stronger advocate for its workers.
But Sumiati had led an unusually high-level protest by outraged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
He  ordered the Minister for Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection, to go to Saudi Arabia to handle the case.

Sumiati had underwent plastic surgery, and she will have to undergo further plastic surgery as she was acted on savagely - bone breaking, hot iron put on her face, mutilation and being stabbed.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs picked her uncle in Mataram in West Nusa Tenggara and the presence of an Indonesian doctor to lift her spirits.

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Similar cases of abuse had repeatedly happened.
Many knew about abuse cases as they happen many times.
Another two female migrant workers are currently being treated in their hometowns in West Nusa Tenggara with the help of an NGO returning from Saudi Arabia.
Both suffered permanent injuries and have not received proper treatment.

The case has been deeply shocking and embarrassing for Saudis, all the more so because it has been seen to be part of a deeper problem.
60 more housemaids from Dompu in West Nusa Tenggara are awaiting to be sent home.

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More Harrowing Tales Of Maid Abuse From Saudi Arabia

A young Indonesian woman died two months after starting work in Saudi Arabia in 2007, but her parents did not find out about her death until August this year, local newspapers reported Monday (November 22).

In another case, 27-year-old Selvia said her Saudi employers nearly worked her to death during the three years she was with the big family, the Jakarta Globe said.

The back-breaking work, which included lifting heavy gas canisters, left her partially paralysed, said Selvi, who returned to Indonesia in July.

Indonesian women who were maids or their families have been stepping forward and telling local newspapers about hardships and abuse in the Middle East kingdom since two maid abuse cases were reported here last week.

A crowd of about 90 people protested outside the Saudi embassy here Monday over the recent death of 36-year-old Kikim Komalasari, whose body was found in a dumpster.

Fourteen maids who had gone to the Indonesian consulate in Jeddah to seek redress told the English-language Saudi Gazette that their employers made them work for nothing for as many as 13 years, the newspaper reported Monday.

Sumiati Mohammad Badri, 67, started work with a Saudi family in Makkah in 1993. For nine years, her employer did not pay her any salary.

“Whenever I asked to be paid, he used to say, ‘Your money is in the bank’,” said the maid from Cilacap in Java. All she got was food and a place to sleep.

She was then sent to work for her employer’s mother. When the latter died about seven years later, the family paid her 50,400 Saudi riyals, the report said.

She is now seeking the consulate’s help to get back 64,800 riyals, the total amount she said she is owed for the first nine years of work.

The Saudi Gazette also reported Monday that the woman accused of inflicting serious burns and cuts on 23-year-old Sumiati Salan Mustapa had been charged and sent to a prison in Medina.

The Saudi woman, who is in her 50s, claimed Sumiati was “reckless” in doing her work and reportedly admitted using an electric iron to burn the young woman, the report said.

Sumiati would need plastic surgery for the injuries to her face.

About 1.2 million Indonesians are working in Saudi Arabia, most of whom are women working as maids.

The radical Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) Monday threatened to conduct sweeping raids against Saudi nationals in Indonesia, if the Saudi government did not properly punish the culprits responsible for the abuse.

Most Indonesians choose to show their anger online and in the media. Many want the government to stop sending, at least temporarily, women to work as maids in Saudi Arabia.

Jakarta has already barred its women from going to Jordan, Kuwait and Malaysia after a spate of maid abuse cases.

Source: .anytimesnews November 23, 2010
 

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