Nepali maids dumped outside embassy in Saudi 26, May 2010
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Saudi Arabia.Tags: Gulf human rights, Human rights violations, Maids, Saudi human rights
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Arab News reports that Nepali maids are being dumped outside their embassy in Riyadh at a rate of two per day. Their employers, often paying them around £75 per month, dump them to avoid paying their tickets back home and paying a fine if/when the maid overstays their visa. The Embassy reported that of six women that the Embassy repatriated “three were physically sick of mentally deranged.”
Curiously enough, these maids are on the ‘luckier’ end of the scale. Many more are, as I wrote only yesterday, essentially confined to the houses and a seemingly high proportion of maids are severely mistreated. These kinds of issues are a true cancer prevalent throughout the Gulf with no cure whatsoever in sight.
Hat tip: al bab
Kuwait’s daily shame 2, July 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Kuwait.Tags: human rights, Kuwait, Maids, Migrant workers, Suicide
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I’ve just returned to Kuwait for only the second time since I lived here some years ago. Alas, the papers are still full of despair-ridden stories of migrant workers in Kuwait. Page 6 alone of today’s Al Watan describes an Indian maid and two Philippine maids drinking Dettol, Colorx and various pesticides in attempts to kill themselves. Only the Indian maid was successful. One can only imagine just how epically awful conditions must have had to have been to drive these workers to kill themselves by – of all painful and horrific things – swallowing highly concentrated bleach. I fervently hope that their employers (or owners, as they may see themselves) pause and think about just why these human-beings did this. Alas, I doubt they will.
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