அடிமைகளிடம் கருணை காட்டுங்கள் - சவுதி அரேபியா விளம்பரம்

வீட்டுவேலை செய்வதற்காகவும் வீட்டோடு அடிமையாக இருக்க இந்தியாவிலிருந்தும் மற்ற நாடுகளிலிருந்தும் சவுதி அரேபியாவுக்கு செல்லும் பெண்களிடம் கருணை காட்டும்படி சவுதி அரேபிய அரசு அரபியர்களை கேட்டுக்கொள்கிறது.

இப்படிப்பட்ட வீட்டு அடிமைகளிடம் கருணை காட்டும்படி அரபிய அரசு விளம்பரம் செய்கிறது.

'Be nice to your maid' say new Saudi ads
5 hours ago

RIYADH (AFP) — An advertising agency in Saudi Arabia plans to air public service commercials to promote kinder treatment of domestic helpers in a country where reports of abuse of foreign workers abound.

The ads will air on Arab satellite television stations after the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, expected to end on October 12, said Kaswara al-Khatib, founder and chief creative director of Full Stop Advertising.

The commercials were initially due to be aired during the fasting month but "people tend to be nice in Ramadan anyway, and we need to be nice to them (domestic staff) beyond Ramadan," Khatib told AFP.

Khatib said he put off the broadcasts also because he was concerned the message of mercy they are meant to send would get lost in the huge number of commercials aired during Ramadan, a month prized by advertisers as families huddle around their television sets.

The three ads cost around 100,000 dollars and were financed by a non-profit subsidiary of construction giant Saudi Binladin Group, the family-run business set up by the father of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

Khatib said he was in contact with two Arab stations -- Saudi-owned MBC and Lebanon's LBC, which is partly Saudi-owned -- on airing the ads.

"We deal with helpers as if they are not humans and have no feelings," said the 37-year-old electrical engineer.

One of the commercials shows an employer abusing his maid and driver, both from Asian countries as are the bulk of servants in Saudi Arabia.

"You should thank God it's only two months," the employer says when the driver asks for two months of unpaid wages.

"He who has no mercy will not receive mercy," says the ad, quoting the Hadeeth, or sayings of Islam's Prophet Mohammed.

Another ad shows a typical gathering of women having a meal and the hostess telling her Filipina maid -- named Rahma, or "mercy" in Arabic -- to "get out of my sight," Khatib said.

In the third ad, viewers will see the feet of a housewife who is heard ordering her maid "not to sleep until the house is spotless" and the maid scrubbing the floor.

"Show mercy to those on earth, you will receive mercy from He who is in heaven," goes the theme, also borrowed from the Hadeeth.

Human rights groups have slammed the alleged abuse of foreign workers in Saudi Arabia, which hosts around six million expatriates.

Reports of exploitation ranging from the withholding of salaries and passports to physical assault and sexual abuse are increasingly appearing in the local press as it makes use of a measure of freedom allowed by authorities in recent years.

New York-based Human Rights Watch charged in August that the beating to death of two Indonesian female workers by a Saudi family highlighted the "atmosphere of impunity fostered by government inaction" toward abusive employers.

In July 2004, HRW was accused by Riyadh of exaggerating the incidence of foreign labour abuse in Saudi Arabia after it released a report alleging that foreign workers were systematically exploited, some of them living in slave-like conditions.

Riyadh police teamed up with the Sri Lankan embassy in September to rescue a Sri Lankan maid who had telephoned the Arab News newspaper to say she had been imprisoned, abused and unpaid by her woman employer for at least seven years.

Charge d'affaires at the Sri Lankan embassy W.S.M.S. Wijesundera told AFP the housemaid had reached a settlement with her employers under which they will pay more than 5,000 dollars and buy her a ticket home.

Accusations of abuse of expatriate workers have also been levelled by rights watchdogs at employers in other oil-rich Gulf Arab countries. Millions of foreign labourers, mostly from Asia, work in the region in jobs ranging from construction to domestic help.