Saudi Arabia: When Domestic Workers Are The Issue
12 February 2013
By Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed
In the future, when a researcher or historian is
reviewing our concerns and worries, they will find a
society beset by anxiousness but not preoccupied with
major issues but rather marginal ones like that of
domestic workers. I do not mean to detract from these
marginal issues but rather to denigrate our
prioritization of events which reflects an indolent
society with no major stresses, in other words a
society that has lost its compass.
Our history will be seen in major news stories like
?Maid cooked employer's baby in cooking pot? and ?Labourer
locked employer in desert barn for twenty years? and
others. This is not to mention the stories regarding
the high-level diplomatic communication to solve the
crisis created after the governments of Indonesia and
the Philippines forbade their citizens from travelling
to work as domestic workers, while another news story
confirms that Sri Lanka has not taken this step after
a Sri Lankan maid convicted of killing an infant was
executed. The story of this Sri Lankan maid was all
over the news. She claims that the infant choked to
death accidently, while the child's parents claim that
she suffocated him to death. The Labor Minister became
the most high-profile minister in the country after he
enforced a tax on hiring foreign laborers. Reactions
toward the minister's decision vary; he was despised
by some, particularly the business lobby, while
celebrated by others, including the youth.
Domestic workers have become an important part of the
national economy. After a number of lean years in the
Saudi market as a result of the stock market collapse,
the only new companies succeeding are agencies for
foreign domestic workers, which have been able to
eliminate the problems of bribery and sponsorship. As
families complain of low incomes, statistics indicate
that the foreign labour industry is worth more than
100 billion riyals, with this primarily being focused
on domestic workers.
When analysing a society's development, a social
researcher will clearly see an overt relationship
between Saudi women's inability to obtain the right to
drive and the presence of a system that facilitates
the recruitment of foreign drivers. This has allowed
Saudi households to live with a system prohibiting
women from driving by facilitating one million foreign
workers to enter the country and find employment as
drivers. The head of a family therefore will pay no
less than approximately 300 dollars per month for a
driver.
Contrary to this, the social researcher will also find
old prohibitions being broken down thanks to the
spread of foreign domestic workers, including those
working for conservative families. With the entry of
this huge army of domestic workers, new traditions
have been brought in to Saudi households.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the issue of
domestic workers is a pivotal one that keeps
government institutions busy. It is not strange for
this issue to be among the most important issues for
citizens. As for how states can influence a society's
daily life, they can flood the market with vegetables,
workers, or cement. The state-with its apparatus and
decisions-has enormous potential that can push
citizens in whatever direction it believes is most
appropriate. It can push them toward science and
technology, enabling five million students to build a
science-based society like that of South Korea and
Finland. It can push girls toward sharing the same
opportunities and future as their brothers or it can
allow them to remain in the backseat, accepting a life
that does not include working in offices or the
agriculture sector. The central authority can expand
construction in villages, turning them into cities.
The central authority can be the reason for a city's
prosperity, or its problems.
Domestic workers being such a primary issue indicates
that this society is not busy with the basics of
developing resources and building an independent
future. The state here cannot prevent people from
filling their homes with foreign domestic workers.
Families will not stop using the services of foreign
domestic workers, who work for comparatively little,
because this is a comfortable solution. But tomorrow,
when resources evaporate and our future generations
have become used to this luxury and laziness, we will
see that perhaps the price was not as cheap as we
thought. If our households instead spend the money
they put aside for foreign workers on educating and
rehabilitating our future generations, we will change
both history and the future.
Al
Rashed is the general manager of Al -Arabiya
television. He is also the former editor-in-chief of
Asharq Al- Awsat, and the leading Arabic weekly
magazine, Al Majalla. He is also a senior Columnist in
the daily newspapers of Al Madina and Al Bilad. He is
a US post-graduate degree in mass communications. He
has been a guest on many TV current affairs programs.
He is currently based in Dubai.
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