I HAD earlier published an article in this very newspaper titled: “Are we innocent?” in which I tackled the issue of housemaids and the crimes some of them might commit. Some housemaids would escape from their sponsors while others might expose themselves to various forms of danger while trying to jump out of the window or attempting to reach the ground by dangling from a rope or a long piece of cloth. Some housemaids did succeed in escaping from the homes of their sponsors while others ended up in hospitals for a long or a short stay. I said, among others, the reasons that drove these housemaids to escape included the bad treatment from the family, the low pay and the lack of a separate place for the housemaid to spend her leisure time and have some privacy. I had received a number of supporting comments on my e-mail address. Some readers also put their comments on the Saudi Gazette website. Most of these comments agreed with me that we were not innocent. A reader even asked me: How did I dare to even think that we might be innocent? Of course the reader is free to say or write whatever he wants but I am not in favor of generalizing. If there are people who are not innocent, there are others who are kind and merciful to their housemaids. Similarly, some of the housemaids did have enough reasons to escape while others escaped out of greed to reach the brokers and to get appointed elsewhere at a higher pay. What made me come back to writing about the same subject is a recent report published by Okaz newspaper on the issue of the housemaids. The report was prepared by Ibrahim Shihab who paid a visit to the recruitment office and wrote about the impressions of some Saudis whom he met there looking to hire housemaids. A citizen told him that the office had made it clear to him that he could only recruit a housemaid from certain countries which were: Morocco, Eritrea, Ghana, the Philippines, Cote d'Ivoire, the Comoro Islands, Sri Lanka, China and Burkina Faso. The man said the Saudis were accustomed to the Indonesian housemaids and that many Saudi housewives preferred them over the others. The ban imposed on recruiting of housemaids from Indonesia made the Saudis look for other nationalities to recruit from. He said, in the absence of Indonesia, he himself preferred to recruit a housemaid from the Philippines regardless of the tough conditions contained in the contract he had to sign. He said some people would accept the difficult terms and conditions contained in the contract with the hope that they might reach an understanding with the housemaid upon her arrival. He said the tough conditions consisted of giving the housemaid a two-day weekly off and not asking her to do any work which was not stipulated in the contract. If a house help was recruited as a nanny she should not be asked to do any other house chores without her consent. She should also be given a separate room to sleep and keep her things such as laptop, iPad, mobile phone and other things. He said Filipino housemaids are sensitive so they should be treated nicely and not asked to do any work, which is not clearly contained in the contract. The man said the Indonesian housemaids would accept to work day and night and at odd times without complaining. Being Muslims, the Indonesian housemaids are more closer to the family and the children. The ban imposed on recruitment from Indonesia made people go to the Philippines because unlike housemaids from other countries the Filipino housemaids speak English. From what this citizen had said and from what I had personally noticed, the housemaids were not being treated nicely or humanely. They would be asked to work for long hours without considering that they were flesh and blood and needed to rest like other human beings. The housemaid also needs a separate accommodation where she can rest and have some privacy. Some families may ask their housemaid to sit in the kitchen or to move from one place to another including the hall, the salon and the passageway. This will make them feel humiliated and depressed. It will breed in them the desire to revenge, mutiny or escape whenever she might get a chance. Some of them are forced to become criminals — killing or harming children and old women. The housewife has an ethical obligation toward the housemaid. She should not ask her to do impossible jobs and she should also help her in carrying out the house chores so that she should not feel to be enslaved. The housemaid should be treated as a family member and be made to feel at home. In this case the mother will be sure that her children are safe in the hands of the housemaid. Every human being has dignity, honor, value and feelings, which should be respected and preserved.
