Saudi Arabia: We Employ, But We Do Not Own - Untold Tales Of Terror And Persecution
15 May 2018By
Tariq A. Al-Maeena
My Turkish friend Orhan came to see me the other day. Accompanying him was
Barakat, a diminutive and shabbily dressed Saudi with an impressive mustache
that extended from ear to ear. Barakat had a problem they needed to air out.
It so happened that a couple of days prior to their visit, Barakat's Filipino
maid had unexpectedly disappeared. His wife woke up one morning only to find
the maid's sleeping mat folded, and the front door unlocked. Her frantic calls
to Barakat who was at work at the time brought him back rapidly to their
apartment.
After checking out their place for any missing items of value, Barakat sought
to question some of the neighbors in the adjoining apartments. No one had
observed anything. The building watchman was next, but he was of no help. He
was busy around the corner most of the morning washing and cleaning the
landlord's two cars.
Barakat was perplexed. How dare this woman do this to him, he muttered as he
sat across from me. For some unexplained reasons, I could not help get Clint
Eastwood and those spaghetti westerns with their array of villains out of my
mind as I tried to focus my wandering thoughts.
"Are you sure she took off voluntarily? Is there any chance she may have been
in some kind of an accident, or is simply out on an errand...?" I asked before
he interrupted me. "We do not allow her to leave our apartment ever. She was
brought here to work, and that's all we ever let her do," he replied
emphatically.
"Have you informed the concerned authorities?" I continued less graciously,
feeling slightly uncomfortable in the presence of this man whose mannerisms
were beginning to make me realize why his maid might have run away. Orhan, at
this point, interjected that they both had spent the previous day going from
one government agency to the other to get all this information taken care of.
After several perplexing detours from one bureaucracy to another, they
believed that they had covered all of the bases.
"Does your wife work, ...And what can I do to help?" I cautiously asked with
mixed feelings. "No, my wife is not employed anywhere. And she is not a
housekeeper or a maid. That is why I went through all the trouble of applying
for and recruiting a maid. This maid was never good from the start," he
continued. "All she did was clean the apartment, do the laundry and iron the
clothes. And there are only five of us...my wife, our three children, and me.
Two of the children went to school, and the third was not yet ready. And what
irritated me the most was that she could never cook an appealing kabsa or fix
my sheesha right."
In the evenings, when his relatives came for a visit, she was expected to
prepare tea and other delicacies for the guests, which was not such an unusual
demand, he added. When all the family members had retired for the night, she
was counted upon to mop up the mess before she went to sleep. On weekends,
Barakat usually entertained his extended family, and his maid was required to
prepare food and dessert for well over two dozen people!
Barakat evoked memories of tyranny against hired help, untold tales of terror
and persecution against some of the gentler denizens on this planet. And
Barakat did not appear to be a very gentle individual.
As Barakat sat there spewing forth his wrath and contempt on the maid and her
whole civilization, I could not help but think that here was an ignorant man
who for some twist of economic abundance had assumed that he had purchased a
human being and her freedom. Orhan at this point noticing the stunned frown on
my face and interrupted to ask me if I could be of any help.
I just shrugged my shoulders, shook my head and walked them to the door.
Slavery was abolished centuries ago, and yet there are today individuals who
by virtue of their place in life seek to make slaves of those they employ. And
this in the 21st century! Who knows, tables may turn with the passage of time.
The author can be reached at talmaeena@aol.com. Follow him on Twitter @talmaeena
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