Abdul Aziz Al-Suwaigh Al-Jazirah Prominent academic and media personality Huwaida Khoja sparked a healthy debate over foreign workers when she posted comments on her Facebook page about resumption of recruiting Indonesian domestic helpers after a hiatus of more than three years. The two sides agreed that the labor contract would have 10 conditions to ensure the rights of the Indonesian domestic workers. Major features of the contract are: Monthly salary of SR1,480, health insurance, passport and iqama not held by the employer, right to weekly off, the right to refuse to work on her day off, a SR50 compensation for each off day in case she agrees to work for more than eight hours, a comfortable room with a bathroom and no right for employer or housewife to enter and inspect worker's room. Some friends of Khoja commented that these conditions are unfair to Saudis hiring Indonesian domestic helpers. A number of them blamed the Ministry of Labor for this situation while others said they don't want to hire Indonesian maids anymore. I agree that there are provisions in the contract that are unfair to the Saudi employers. But what worried me was the superiority complex and arrogance some of us hold in their attitude toward these workers in general. Some of us are narrow-minded. We are guided by our own vested interests above everything else and this is even at the expense of public interests. It is astonishing that when we make demands, we forget that these workers have also some rights. While admitting that some of them violate our rights, we also have to admit that some of us are violating the rights of domestic workers. Many writers, including myself, have written about this matter not in defense of the workers but in defense of ourselves as a group and not as individuals. This is also in defense of the image of Saudis which was tarnished by some of us who maltreat foreign workers as if they are not human beings but were created by God to serve them and that their fates and in our hands. I still remember an abusive comment posted by one Saudi friend that “I am a Pakistani Saudi” when I wrote an article about foreign workers in the past. My reply to him was that first and foremost I am a human being and it is a sheer accident that I was born in this holy land. I won't say that I have that level of good manners and behavior matching those of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and the revelation of the Holy Qur'an. Ultimately, we are all human beings, and Allah has made some of us to serve others but this does not mean that we have any right to enslave the maid servants and deprive them of their rights. In this respect, we have to recall the words of the second Islamic Caliph Umar Bin Khattab who asked: “Why have you enslaved people whose mothers gave birth to them as free persons? No doubt, the foreign workers are serving this country and no one really wants to hurt them. They deserve respect on all occasions.
