Unabated War Against Saudi Women

Director’s Comment: In their undiminished insistence that the country’s wealth, decision-making and governorship remain property of the ruling family and its theocratic partners, any meaningful reform in Saudi Arabia will remain aesthetic. The recurrent tactic has been to pre-design royal decrees that sound liberal to the public, but are sure to be rejected by the religious establishment and its royal handlers, such as Princes Naif and Salman. The king consequently benefits of a favorable public opinion, despite the fact his highly praised reform efforts remain “ink on paper”, especially when it comes to women’s rights.
Case in point is a recent decision taken by the Panda supermarket chain, to hire 16 women cashiers in a store in Saudi Arabia’s most liberal city, Jeddah. Members of the religious establishment immediately protested against the company’s decision. They called it “ungodly” and urged people to stop patronizing the supermarket. Despite the fact that the women were covered from head to toe (except for their eyes) and are only allowed to serve families, the store was empty of customers, and cashiers were sitting idol as of last reporting on August 31, 2010. Not surprisingly, there was no word from King Abdullah to support the supermarket’s decision to hire women cashiers or to instruct his religious zealot to quit harassing people.
These duplicitous political maneuvers employed by royals, usually result in an unfair blame of society for rejecting women. Religion is also blamed for denying women their basic citizenship rights. In reality, neither society and/or religion are responsible for denying women their natural and human rights to feed themselves and support their families. It is politics and the Saudi economy that are responsible for denying women their right to work. Allowing women to work would challenge the country’s economy as well as its sterile, patriarchal ideology. These same policies exonerate the system from meeting its obligations toward all members of society.
The attached article explains the regime’s methods of playing genders against each other by blaming it on society, tradition and God. Read article
http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article106238.ece

Hammering Nails into Her Bones

Director’s Comment: Due to total absence of codified and institutionalized rule of non-sectarian laws applicable uniformly to all citizens and residents of Saudi Arabia, horrendous crimes against dependents (children and wives) and defenseless expatriates, especially housemaids (modern slaves) occur frequently. The cruel punishment of this unprotected Sri Lankan maid is not isolated or least severe according to personal accounts made available to CDHR and other groups.
The fate of the estimated ten million migrant workers (mostly Asians), in particular house servants, is determined by their employers whose rights are determined by the government’s pre- modern judicial system. This is the same judicial system that hands down harsher punishments to gang-rape victims (see Bint Al-Qatief) than to their rapists. Defenseless maids, family drivers and other expatriate laborers in Saudi Arabia rarely report the heinous crimes in fear of losing their jobs and/or of deportation, and when they do their employers (masters, owners) are hardly punished for their crimes, especially if the victims are non-Muslims. The pre-ordered expatriate laborers are treated as hostages, their passports are confiscated by their employers upon their arrival to Saudi Arabia and they cannot move, mingle with others, or communicate with their families without their employers’ permission. They are not paid regularly and some of the maids are on duty 24/7.
Not only are the unlucky expatriates mistreated by many of their employers and even more so by the arbitrary Saudi sectarian judicial system, but they are also ignored by their own governments. This is due to the Saudi government and its businessmen’s heavy-handed financial influence on those governments and their businesses. The expatriates are not only forgotten and ignored by their governments, but also by the UN, the World Trade Organization (WTO), migrant workers’ agencies, labor unions, Saudi Western democratic allies and all Arab and Muslim institutions in the West.
When it comes to the Saudi government’s domestic and foreign policies, as well as their practices and thereof repercussions on the Saudi people and expatriates, everyone looks the other way.
The Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (CDHR), calls on the migrant workers’ agencies, international labour unions, the World Trade Organization, human rights groups as well as decent peoples and governments, to stand up and expose the rampant abuses of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia. Read Article
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/08/27/sri.lanka.maid.assault/index.html

Minority Rights in Saudi Arabia

Religious minorities in Saudi Arabia (non-Wahhabi Muslims and non-Muslims) face severe discrimination in employment and education, and are forbidden from openly practicing their religion. In cases involving the calculation of accidental injury or death compensation, a non-Muslim receives only half of the compensation that a male Muslim would receive, and in some cases only one-sixteenth of that amount, depending on intentionality. The testimony of non-Wahhabi Muslims can be disregarded, and non-Muslims are likely to receive harsher criminal sentences than Muslims. All verdicts are decided by the whim of partial Wahhabi judges.

The 2004 statistical report from the Saudi Ministry of Economy and Planning acknowledged that non-Saudis account for 67% of the Kingdom’s labor force. Other estimates set this figure as high as 85 to 90%. This translates to nearly seven million foreigners, or one-third of the population of Saudi Arabia, who live and work in the country without any rights or recognition under the strict Saudi-Wahhabi religious laws and practices. Without these workers, many of whom are non-Muslims, the Saudi economy would collapse. This hiring practice permeates the government and private employment sectors. Saudis are bypassed in favor of cheap labor, mostly from poorer Asian or African countries, who accept any terms without complaint due to their constant fear of arrest or deportation.

Despite Saudi Arabia’s dependence on its labor and expertise, foreign workers in the country are treated very poorly. Upon entry into the country, the passports of non-diplomats are confiscated by their employers or sponsors and the foreigner becomes a virtual hostage of his or her sponsor until departing the country. Foreign workers often face abusive conditions in the workplace, being denied breaks and meals while working unreasonably long hours, and in some cases not receiving pay for months or years at a time.

There are numerous reports of serious verbal and physical abuse, especially of foreign women working as domestic servants in Saudi households. There is no minimum wage, and workers do not have the right to organize or strike. There is no agency that recognizes the grievances of foreign laborers, and they may not access the justice system. Embassies of foreign workers often side with the Saudis for fear of losing Saudi loans, favorable trade deals, and access to cheap oil.

CDHR strongly urges the international community to condemn these abuses and the institutional discrimination against anyone in Saudi Arabia because of belief, ethnicity, race, or gender. The Saudi regime, with its intolerant religious institutions and abusive and dysfunctional economic infrastructure, must be held accountable for its discriminatory policies. The recognition and protection of basic and universal human rights constitutes an indispensable part of the democratization process. A policy of fairness and decency must replace the current government-sanctioned practice of discrimination and abuse in Saudi Arabia.

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