By Lauren Mellinger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – In December 2008, a Saudi corporation, which chooses to remain anonymous, initiated an ad campaign to stop abuse against migrant domestic workers in the country. The campaign emphasizes religious teaching, focusing on mercy and compassion to advocate for a change in the treatment of foreign domestic workers.
An estimated 1.5 million migrant domestic workers travel to Saudi Arabia annually in search of employment. Many who are employed as domestic workers are subjected to emotional, physical and sexual abuse by their employer. For example, wealthy employers withhold wages.
Human rights activities, including Human Rights Watch, claim that abuse against domestic workers is common in Saudi Arabia, and that the current ad campaign is a necessary first step toward addressing the issue. All television advertisements end with a saying from the Prophet Muhammed regarding mercy and reciprocity.
The campaign features advertisements in several Saudi-owned newspapers and satellite television channels, and includes graphic images depicting the maltreatment of domestic workers in many Saudi homes. One advertisement, which appeared in the newspaper Al Hayat, depicts a maid trapped in a kennel and wearing a dog collar; another ad shows a foreign chauffeur wearing saddle while a Saudi woman holds the reins.
The ad campaign has been criticized heavily in Saudi Arabia, with many claiming that the harsh imagery is not an adequate representation of Saudi society. Several journalists have called for an end to the ad campaign, claiming that it depicts Saudi society as cruel and heartless. Several major newspapers have refused to publish the ads. According to one journalist, Terad Al al-Asmari, the current campaign “could lead to hatred between foreign labor and the Saudi citizen.”
However, a Saudi human rights lawyer and activist Abdel Rahmn al-Lahim has defended the campaign, stating that, “unlike conferences and seminar, a media campaign like Rahma reaches the average man and woman, who are more often than not, those same employers who mistreat their servants.”
In response to a Human Rights Watch report released in 2008 regarding the plight of migrant domestic workers in Saudi Arabia, the government, through the Ministry of Labor, and the Saudi Association for Human Rights are collaborating to formulate guidelines that will regulate the relationship between foreign domestic workers and their employers. The new regulations include legal guarantees for laborers, and an initiative to legalize professional contractors and corporations through which Saudi citizens can employ domestic workers based on a contractual relationship between the company, the migrant worker and the Saudi employer. Both human rights advocates and the Saudi government consider eliminating the private sponsorship of migrant domestic workers to be a crucial step in ending abuse of migrant domestic workers.
Human Rights Watch is urging Saudi Arabia to ratify the UN Migrant Workers Convention, which guarantees migrant workers’ human rights and requires a state to provide protection for foreign workers against abuse by private employers and public officials.
For more information, please see:
Al Arabiya – Saudi Mercy Campaign Highlights Islamic Values – 24 December 2008
Angola Press – Saudi Campaign Against Maid Abuse – 24 December 2008
BBC –Saudi Campaign Against Maid Abuse – 23 December 2008
Reuters – Mideast Should Act Against Maid Abuse – 17 December 2008