(Washington Times) - Joel Mowbray Instead of waiting for the House of Saud to submit a report to the UN on its treatment of women, the bureaucrats in Brussels could do some field work and witness women who are locked inside homes, paid little or nothing as domestic servants, worked up to 20 hours per day, and verbally and physically abused. They could see this sad state of affairs not just in Saudi Arabia, but in Saudi homes right here in the United States. According to the Saudi government, some 19,000 domestic servants - almost exclusively foreign women working in Saudi Arabia as maids - escaped from Saudi homes in the 12 months prior to March 2001. The real figure is likely far higher, because the government statistic counts only those women who go to government-run shelters for "runaway" domestics. Women who show up at Saudi police stations seeking help are instead locked up and remain jailed until their employers reclaim them.
2003-02-07 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive