Cruel side of the Arab world

[STOIC]

Every now and then, an event like this one comes along and makes any rational individual to question the humanity of the Arab world. This kind of employee treatment defies all logical explanation of humanity. Personal account of maids in the Arab world is chilling and cruel. This kind of treatments raises profound questions about a country that calls itself the paragon of Islamic world. I know it sound so sappy to attribute all the problems to the country as a whole, but this is not the first or the last kind of cruel side of Saudi families. Don’t you expect these employees to be rational decision makers who analyze the cost of their actions to humanity? I am not asking the Arab world to innovate some incentive-based programs to motivate their workers, but to respect humanity. This kind of actions do draw conclusion of what I think of the Arab world.

 

 

My hell on earth, by woman who Saudi Arabia deported

 

Story by JUMA NAMLOLA

Publication Date: 5/24/2006

At exactly 7.50pm on Monday the bus from Buscar Company pulls up outside its office on Jomo Kenyatta road in Mombasa.

 

Tired passengers start streaming out after nine hours on the road from Nairobi, oblivious of the fact one of them is the reason a battery of journalists have converged at the offices.

 

Carrying two paper bags, a petite, buibui-clad woman steps out as family members surge forward to hug her.

 

The journalists, who have been camping at the offices for more than an hour, also shove to get the best shot of the passenger.

 

 

Ms Nur Said Kituku (centre), who was deported from Saudi Arabia after she disagreed with her employer, in a tearful reunion with her children Aisha (left), Mariam (right) and Yassin (front), soon after she arrived in Mombasa on Monday evening. Photos by Gideon Maundu

 

 

But Ms Nur Said Kituku is no ordinary passenger. Even after going for more than 50 hours without sleep, she still manages broad, but tearful smile, when her brother Yunnus, reaches her.

 

Five minutes later, her father Said Mohamed Kituku and three of Ms Kituku’s children join in the emotional reunion.

 

Dream come true

 

With tears flowing, Ms Kituku hugs her children Maryam, 13, Aisha, 12, and Yassin, eight. For them, seeing their mother at last, is a dream come true.

 

At a hastily organised press conference in the Buscar offices, Ms Kituku narrates the tribulations she has had to endure since she left Kenya in 2004, for a job in Damam, a city some 600 kilometres from Saudi Arabia's capital Riyadh.

 

Immediately she arrived at the home of her employer, a single mother, she was asked to surrender all her documents, including passport.

 

Saudi laws require that foreign workers surrender their passports while in the kingdom. Their sponsor (usually the employer) obtains work and residence permits for them.

 

The main problem with Saudi Arabia is the amount of working time is not proportional to the salary. I used to wake up at 5.30am and work nonstop until some minutes past midnight. And even then, whenever my bosses felt they needed to be served, I would be woken up, Ms Kituku tells the journalists.

 

Relations with her employer plummeted from bad to worse, she says.

 

"One day my employer came home at about 2am and called me to serve her, which I did. She then asked me if I had given her baby some juice, but when I answered in the negative, she beat me up with a telephone handset," she says.

 

The following day she packed up her bags, went to report to police and asked to be returned to Kenya.

 

Shocking news

 

But there, shock awaited her. Police told her it was only the employer who could grant her request.

 

And the employer demanded 5,000 riyals (Sh96,500) she had incurred while processing her visa.

 

"I couldn’t pay that amount of money and I had to continue working under very hostile conditions until one day when I called the Kenyan embassy in Riyadh for assistance. The man at the embassy asked me to take all my documents and board the nearest bus to the embassy, but he knew it was not practical because my documents were with my employer," she said.

 

And it is not easy for a migrant worker to switch jobs. Once in the country, they have to take whatever job they are offered, even if it does not match their skills or the job description specified in their employment contract.

 

In theory, Saudi law bans this practice unless the worker agrees in writing to perform work different from what is put down in their contract.

 

Left with no choice, Ms Kituku decided to give herself to police and asked to be deported.

 

At the deportation centre, she realised that there were many other workers from Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and many East Asian countries, waiting to be sent back to their countries.

 

Almost all of them said they had disagreed with their employers.

 

"One thing that makes the deportation centre worse than a prison is lack of information. Immediately you get there, your mobile phone is confiscated and the only person you can talk to (from outside the centre) is your employer, when he or she visits you," she says.

 

When Ms Kituku finally got an air ticket for Nairobi, authorities had to persuade her employer to let her go. It cost her three months' salary because she did not give a quit notice.

 

"I didn’t care about money. What was important was to leave that country as soon as possible," she said.

 

She booked herself on a Saudi Airline flight from Damam to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, where she took a Kenya Airways flight to Nairobi.

 

Ms Kituku’s release offers her Kenyan colleagues still being held in Saudi Arabia much hope. Several Kenyan women including Ms Margaret Njeri Ndung’u, Ms Aisha Abdi Dagane, Ms Hafswa Mwatime Said, Ms Pauline Wanjiru Gicheru, Ms Fatuma Wanjiru Majid and Ms Jane Kiinya are still being held at the deportation centre.

 

One of the longest waits for deportation in Saudi Arabia is that of Eritrean Christian Girmaye Ambaye, who was held for nearly three years from 2001, for his alleged participation in "Christian activities" prohibited under the country's strict Islamic law.

 

Now free, Ms Kituku has vowed never to look for a job in Saudi Arabia. "With my qualifications, I can look for a job as a salesgirl in Dubai, where they respect employees," she said.

 

Her case and that of many other Kenyans in Saudi Arabia raises a pertinent issue. The authenticity of recruiting agents.

 

"Almost every quarter seems to blame the agents but nothing has been done to ensure that people are not lured into hoaxes and end up losing money. With lack of employment, it is very difficult for ordinary people to remember that when the deal is too good, they should think twice," says Ms Kituku.

 

 

Sources

[Naden]

I don't believe Saudis are any better or worse than people in different regions of the world. They are uncivilized, though. Worker rights and the protection of every member of a society including expatriates must be fought for by individuals and groups including unions. These fights are often bloody but necessary. Saudis have little use for such organizations. Yet.

 

Even in the most developed nations, worker (human?) rights are a work in progress and must be constantly defended and upheld. Justice doesn't come easy and without a price and their religion means nothing; these are CIVIL rights and those ignoring them will remain largely uncivilized.

[ElPunto]

^I agree with you in general but what makes me especially outraged is that they proclaim themselves the vanguard/leadership of Muslims and the ummah and they engage in this. The heights of hypocrisy reached by the Saudis and other rich Gulf Arabs are seldom seen anywhere else.

[Naden]

^ True. They aren't really the vanguards of anything and they are only responsible for themselves, uncivil society and all.

[Sharmarkee]

Originally posted by ThePoint:

^I agree with you in general but what makes me especially outraged is that they proclaim themselves the vanguard/leadership of Muslims and the ummah and they engage in this. The heights of hypocrisy reached by the Saudis and other rich Gulf Arabs are seldom seen anywhere else.

 

White people don't suffer in their hands, they give them a maximum respect - But if you are Black, and Muslim you had it :eek:

[-Lily-]

Lack of humanity, they thrife on suffering.

[Modesty]

Most of the khaleejis I met are nice people, but as in every other nation in the world there are those bad apples.

[Zafir]

Poor thing, what she had to go through to make ends meet, I would wish that on no soul.

On the flipside, I’d say she got it easy, if she didn’t get raped.

 

I am not asking the Arab world to innovate some incentive-based programs to motivate their workers, but to respect humanity

Stoic, with all due respect brother, you're asking for too damn much.

[STOIC]

Zafiir, how so am I asking for damn too much? By telling the Arab world to become more humane? Who is playing the demonic role here, saaxiib? I am not suggesting a transplant of an alien ideology in redefining Arab society that has some laws that looks like ancient civilization laws. Don’t you see how this incident violates all human right shared by both secular and religious laws? I am sure that Islam does clearly commands us to establish justice by rendering our trusts, authority, rights, and respect to whomever they are due. I will make myself clear one more time. There is a big possibility that this is an isolated incident and that not every khamis wearing Arab is responsible for such a heinous crime against humanity. But this is not the first time I heard such kind of crime committed against poor Muslims/Christians from developing nations.

[ElPunto]

^Perhaps it was tongue-in-cheek Stoic!

[STOIC]

^^^^I wondered what possibly possessed our brother/sister to make that comment. As I skimmed through his comment, I was left to chuckle at his point and perhaps interjected a comment too soon without looking too closely behind the irony of his words .

[-Lily-]

This kind of behaviour is quiet wide spread in the Gulf region, I know this from a direct source. The idea that domestic workers are equal to yesteryears slaves is quiet common.

 

It happens in other capacities as well. My aunt was in UAE for 6 months and had to renew her visa, I'm not sure if she had a British passport at the time but after waiting in que for 3 hours the guy charged her double the money or told her to get lost. And whilst she was waiting a blond woman joined the que who was served immediatley and with smiles. I think the concept of equality is something alien to them or limited to a certain group.

[Socod_badne]

Arab haterzzz...carry on choir.

[Resistance]

I say leave the Arabs alone, their ways may not be perfect but they still excell the Somalis in more areas than one.

 

Somalis have a talent to spot and comment on the fualts others but never examine themselves.

[Zafir]

stoic, I was being sarcastic (wehweh), half baked it was, fine, but it should have hindered something noh?? I am on humanity’s side.