Srilankan maid tortured with 24 nails by Saudi employers

[Twisted_Logic]

So, anyone that criticizes the thuggish regime in Saudi Arabia is anti Islam? The birdbrained nature of these pinheads is truly astonishing

[Shirib]

Rubbish.I've never heard of them EVER driving nails into them, forcing them into having sex with other maids or clean an entire house with a toothbrush.


Murax, ha dambaabin I have criticised the Niqaab, and Jilbab, never the Hijab.


Abdalla, please do.

What the Saudis are doing is what the Somalis have done as well. In fact, they pour hot oil on the maids, and not to mention, if the maid is not the same tribe as the master (Which is the case for the most part), it's even WORSE.

I think you and I know that what the Somali high-class have done to the very low class in the Somali society is disgusting.

I can tell you this straight up, you're lying

[Knight of Wisdom]

I can tell you this straight up, you're lying

Lol

Okay, I might've slightly over-exaggerated on that.

[DisplacedDiraac]

Rubbish.I've never heard of them EVER driving nails into them, forcing them into having sex with other maids or clean an entire house with a toothbrush.


Murax, ha dambaabin I have criticised the Niqaab, and Jilbab, never the Hijab.


Abdalla, please do.

What the Saudis are doing is what the Somalis have done as well. In fact, they pour hot oil on the maids, and not to mention, if the maid is not the same tribe as the master (Which is the case for the most part), it's even WORSE.

I think you and I know that what the Somali high-class have done to the very low class in the Somali society is disgusting.

WTH.. Never heard this in my life..
Somalis would never be victims.. it aint in our dna

[BlackVelvet]

Whoever does it, be they Saudi or Malay or whatever is disgusting and should be punished. You can't treat a human being less than you would a dog. And for 'Muslims' to do these things, akhas

Abdalla , what do you think about the cases and the verdicts.


WestLdn, I heard a Saudi Scholar on Iqra Channel give this fatwa to a caller.This lady called in saying 'Salaam Alaikum Shaykh I wear Abaya but also wear trousers underneath is it haraam? He said she should stop wearing jeans because the wind could blow and reveal your jeans and this could lead to fitnah.


BlackVelvet is that the book, the upcoming drama 'I AM SLAVE' is based on?

Also there is another exciting documentary on the same day called 'Dispatches: Secret Slaves' I believe.

I don't know if they're making an adaption but the book was so poignant, a drama wouldn't do it justice.

Yeah I saw the dispatches ad, wax daran le soo saaran marwalba.

[qardasay]

Eight Ethiopian Maids Poisoned in the UAE

Written by Benjamin Joffe-Walt
Published Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Eight Ethiopian domestic workers are believed to have been murdered by poisoning in the United Arab Emirates.

Sources at the Ethiopian embassy in the UAE told the Gulf News that eight female maids had been poisoned by a compatriot maid last Wednesday in an apartment in Sharjah, the largest city in the third largest emirate of the country.

The woman accused of killing the eight domestic workers is said to be held in the emirate's central jail, but Sharjah police have publicly denied reports of the multiple murders, calling them "just rumors."

The embassy sources said the police had reported the incident to them, but were still investigating the motive behind the killings.

The sources claimed the bodies of the eight murdered women had been transferred to the morgues at two local hospitals. Officials at both hospitals reported that no bodies had been brought to the morgue, but that it was possible the bodies had been sent for forensic examinations.

The women are understood to have been living together in an apartment in the Abu Shagara neighborhood of the city.

The UAE has received extensive criticism over the years from human rights and labor organizations over the conditions for foreign workers in the country.

Domestic workers, which make up a significant proportion of the UAE's predominately foreign population, have complained of sub-standard housing, lack of medical care, abuse and non-payment of wages.

The average Emirati household had 10 members in 2008, including domestic workers and drivers. The average monthly wage last year for such a household was the equivalent of about U.S. $12,800.

The government announced new regulations two years ago requiring holiday, medical care and registered salaries for all foreign domestic workers in the country. A conflict resolution unit was also set up to resolve disputes between employees and workers.

"This is a category of workers that are extremely vulnerable because there are no labor laws that apply to them," Ibrahim Awad, Director of the International Migration Program at the International Labor Organization, told The Media Line. "In most countries migrant domestic workers are not covered by domestic labor laws because their workplace is a household. This presents a very big challenge."

"International instruments of human rights apply to domestic workers and there are regulations in the UAE that ensure that domestic workers are paid their wages," Awad continued. "By law, passports and documents cannot be withheld from migrant workers, for example, but the degree of enforcement varies. This presents a particular problem for domestic workers because labor inspectors cannot get access to their workplaces as they work in private homes."

The International Labor Organization plans to push international standards or labor recommendations for domestic laborers in their annual conference next year.

The United States recently placed the country on a watch list of countries with poor human trafficking records.

Ethiopian women are regularly trafficked via Djibouti, Egypt and Somalia for domestic servitude, particularly to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.

The Ethiopian government banned its citizens from traveling to Lebanon in May last year following the deaths of a number of Ethiopian domestic workers in the country. The ban remains in effect.

Copyright © 2008 The Media Line. All Rights Reserved.

Have comments? Email editor@themedialine.org.

[qardasay]

a nice Ethiopian servant girl is the latest fashionable accessory

Everyone, it seems, has a maid. The maids used to be predominantly Filipino, but with the recession, Filipinos have been judged to be too expensive, so a nice Ethiopian servant girl is the latest fashionable accessory.

It is an open secret that once you hire a maid, you have absolute power over her. You take her passport – everyone does; you decide when to pay her, and when – if ever – she can take a break; and you decide who she talks to. She speaks no Arabic. She cannot escape.

In a Burger King, a Filipino girl tells me it is "terrifying" for her to wander the malls in Dubai because Filipino maids or nannies always sneak away from the family they are with and beg her for help. "They say – 'Please, I am being held prisoner, they don't let me call home, they make me work every waking hour seven days a week.' At first I would say – my God, I will tell the consulate, where are you staying? But they never know their address, and the consulate isn't interested. I avoid them now. I keep thinking about a woman who told me she hadn't eaten any fruit in four years. They think I havepower because I can walk around on my own, but I'm powerless."

The only hostel for women in Dubai – a filthy private villa on the brink of being repossessed – is filled with escaped maids. Mela Matari, a 25-year-old Ethiopian woman with a drooping smile, tells me what happened to her – and thousands like her. She was promised a paradise in the sands by an agency, so she left her four year-old daughter at home and headed here to earn money for a better future. "But they paid me half what they promised. I was put with an Australian family – four children – and Madam made me work from 6am to 1am every day, with no day off. I was exhausted and pleaded for a break, but they just shouted: 'You came here to work, not sleep!' Then one day I just couldn't go on, and Madam beat me. She beat me with her fists and kicked me. My ear still hurts. They wouldn't give me my wages: they said they'd pay me at the end of the two years. What could I do? I didn't know anybody here. I was terrified."

One day, after yet another beating, Mela ran out onto the streets, and asked – in broken English – how to find the Ethiopian consulate. After walking for two days, she found it, but they told her she had to get herpassport back from Madam. "Well, how could I?" she asks. She has been in this hostel for six months. She has spoken to her daughter twice. "I lost my country, I lost my daughter, I lost everything," she says.

As she says this, I remember a stray sentence I heard back at Double Decker. I asked a British woman called Hermione Frayling what the best thing about Dubai was. "Oh, the servant class!" she trilled. "You do nothing. They'll do anything!"

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... 64368.html

[qardasay]

" Beirut employment agencies promote them as merchandise or, in extreme case, as pets. They offer advice about which nationalities are supposedly docile, easy to maintain or “harder to break.”

International organizations such as Human Rights Watch (HRW), Immigration Here & There and regional bloggers are publishing alarming reports about the abuse of foreign maids in the region and lately in Lebanon, where reportedly 200,000 maids are legally employed. And with the absence of media coverage of these reports and the lack of attention from official departments in Lebanon, bloggers are taking action to raise awareness online.

Moussa Bachir uses his blog’s space this week to promote what Human Rights Watch has to say about the maids’ situation in Lebanon, which includes:

“Domestic workers are dying in Lebanon at a rate of more than one per week,” said Nadim Houry, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “All those involved – from the Lebanese authorities, to the workers’ embassies, to the employment agencies, to the employers – need to ask themselves what is driving these women to kill themselves or risk their lives trying to escape from high buildings.”

Lebanese Socialist also sheds light on the same report by Human Rights Watch:

HRW said that at least 24 housemaids have died since January 2007 after falling from multi-storey buildings. “Many domestic workers are literally being driven to jump from balconies toescape their forced confinement,” Houry said.

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/08/2 ... or-slaves/

[qardasay]

AURORA (Colorado) — The trial has started of a Saudi Arabian man accused of keeping a young housemaid as a ‘slave’, whom he subdued using rape and other forms of intimidation.
Homaidan Ali Al Turki, 37, is a university educated linguist who arrived in the US in 2000 along with his wife, Sarah Khonaizan, and their four children. But, according to an FBI criminal complaint, the couple kept their Indonesian housemaid, now in her 20s, enslaved by creating ‘a climate of fear and intimidation through rape and other means.'

The housemaid slept on a mattress on the floor of the basement in the couple's home in an upscale suburb of Denver, Colorado and, prosecutors allege, over the four years of her captivity was repeatedly raped by Al Turki. The woman was paid just $2 a day for the housework and child care she performed and according to the FBI document, feared that if she did not obey the Al-Turkis she would ‘suffer serious harm’.

The alleged abuse came to light after the maid was arrested along with the Al Turkis in November 2004 due to an expired visa. After her arrest, the maid told investigators of her plight. Al Turki, who by then was running an Arabic language publishing business called Al Basheer Publications and Translations, was arrested by federal agents and charged with forced labour, domestic servitude and harbouring an illegal immigrant.

The state of Colorado separately charged him with two counts of kidnapping, 12 counts of sexual assault, extortion, theft and false imprisonment. He faces life in prison if convicted. Al Turki denies the charges

Dec. 6, 2005 update: The Turkis were arrested for forced labor, aggravated sexual abuse, document servitude, and harboring an alien, It almost seems humorous that the U.S. Department of Labor yesterday filed a civil suit against the couple for illegally paying their enslaved and raped woman less than the minimum wage and failing to keep records of her employment. They allegedly owe her about $62,500 in unpaid wages and the court would be authorized to order damages of that amount or higher.

[qardasay]

CENTENNIAL - Sniffles and sobs resonated in a packed courtroom Thursday as a Saudi man convicted of sexually assaulting his Indonesian housekeeper was sentenced Thursday to 20 years to life in prison.

Homaidan Al-Turki, 37, was also ordered to serve eight additional years for theft charges.

He denied in Arapahoe County District Court that he enslaved the woman and said authorities targeted him because of his religion.

"Your honor, I am not here to apologize, for I cannot apologize for things I did not do and for crimes I did not commit," he told Judge Mark Hannen.

"The state has criminalized these basic Muslim behaviors. Attacking traditional Muslim behaviors was the focal point of the prosecution," he said.

Prosecutor Natalie Decker said the trial had nothing to do with Al-Turki's Muslim beliefs.

"It has to do with what he did to her for five years," she said outside the courtroom.

Al-Turki was convicted this summer of 12 felony counts of unlawful sexual contact with use of force, one felony count of criminal extortion and one felony count of theft. He also was found guilty of two misdemeanors: false imprisonment and conspiracy to commit false imprisonment.

[qardasay]

Homaidan Al-Turki's website http://www.homaidanalturki.com/EN/

Bush Asked To Pardon Saudi Man in Colo. Prison
19-1-2008
"...Saudi newspapers reported no less than the King Abdullah and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia were to bring up the case with President Bush as they met this week in Riyadh.
..."

DENVER (CBS4) ? President Bush heard a request to release a man in a Colorado prison during his visit to Saudi Arabia.

Homaidan Al-Turki is behind bars awaiting the outcome of an appeal. A court convicted him in 26 of sexually assaulting and enslaving his Indonesian maid in his Aurora home.

Saudi newspapers reported no less than the King Abdullah and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia were to bring up the case with President Bush as they met this week in Riyadh.

When the president arrived in Saudi Arabia, his hosts there had a number of issues waiting to be discussed. According to the Saudi newspaper Gulf News, on the same list as Middle East peace and bilateral relations was the case of Al-Turki.

Al-Turki is a Saudi University of Colorado PHD student.

Another Saudi paper this week wrote the country's National Society for Human Rights has asked President Bush for release of the Saudi detainees in Guantanamo and Al-Turki.

Al-Turki is serving a 28 years to life sentence in prison. He had told CBS4 he felt he was being persecuted because of his religion.

"I am a Saudi," Al-Turki said. "I am a Muslim and I think that's an attraction to law enforcement itself."

Last year, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers flew to Saudi Arabia to meet with members of the Royal Family at the request of the U.S. State Department.

"I wasn't there to apologize," Suthers said. "I wasn't there to defend, so much as to straighten out."

Suthers explained Al-Turki chose not to testify on his own behalf and has the right to an appeal.

Arapahoe District Attorney Carol Chambers told CBS4 Al-Turki was convicted by a jury of citizens from Arapahoe County and does not believe he should be pardoned.

Al-Turki is currently being held at the Limon Correctional Facility.

(© MMVII CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

[Advo]

ADVO ilaahay ka baq, bishan Ramadan.

no my fareen, adiga ilaahey ka baq and umadaan iska daa

[grandpakhalif]

He said she should stop wearing jeans because the wind could blow and reveal your jeans and this could lead to fitnah.

Please tell me you made up this BS

[Executive]

ES

Do you even know the number of Saudi scholars in prision getting tortured by the Kingdom?

Why take cheap shots at the saudis when this issue happens in Somalia too, Somalis usually don't even pay their maids. They take poor girls from badiye, use and abuse them. We don't speak about it either.

[Executive]

So, anyone that criticizes the thuggish regime in Saudi Arabia is anti Islam?

The saudi regime is anti-islam