[ppi] [ppiindia] When Did You Last Smile at Your Maid?

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http://www.arabnews.com/?page=13&section=0&article=82818&d=27&m=5&y=2006&pix=kingdom.jpg&category=Local%20Press

Saturday, 27, May, 2006 (29, Rabi` al-Thani, 1427)



      When Did You Last Smile at Your Maid?
      Abdullah Al-Maghlouth . Al-Watan 


        
      When was the last time you saw a Saudi lady smiling at her maid while out 
shopping or anywhere else? This is a question that always springs to mind when 
I'm out at a shopping mall or an amusement park.

      Saudi and Gulf women generally have a ridiculous habit of walking happily 
in shopping centers with their perfume lingering in the air a mile off. 
Trudging closely behind is usually a tired looking maid, feeling unhappy and 
smelling of onions and generally carrying fat crying babies not to mention the 
shopping bag. Scenes like these have created a generation of Saudis that lack 
discipline, a generation that has been raised to treat those who look after 
them with contempt.

      So it shouldn't come as a surprise for us when we read newspaper stories 
of maids and children fighting, after all such relationships do begin the wrong 
way. Fortunately there are some homes where maids are treated with respect and 
dignity but sadly such homes are few and far between.

      Often you see pleasant pictures of Saudi women elegantly walking in 
shopping centers carrying designer bags. Look further on and then you see the 
sad image of a tired and exhausted maid walking slowly behind. As Saudis we 
generally don't pity these foreign maids until we travel abroad and see people 
pointing fingers of blame at us as.

      In the middle of last year an American newspaper published a report about 
Saudis enslaving maids. The report was illustrated with a huge picture of the 
Saudi Arabian flag with two Asian maids chained in the middle. Okay, some of 
these reports are exaggerated and do contain hyperbole but there is an element 
of truth which we need to accept and face especially if we want to project a 
positive image abroad. 

      A few weeks ago I was deeply troubled by an e-mail I received from a 
Filipino maid. The sender described how she was assaulted by a foreign worker 
in the presence of two Saudis who smilingly looked on and failed to stop the 
attack. Forget the moral issues connected to this, didn't it even cross the 
minds of these Saudis that perhaps this maid would one day react by doing 
something drastic like attacking their loved ones, poisoning them or even 
killing them?

      There are 1.2 million Filipinos in Saudi Arabia who make up 15 percent of 
the total number of foreigners in the Kingdom and 25 percent of Filipino 
workers outside the Philippines. So you can imagine how many foreigners there 
must be from other countries living and working in Saudi Arabia.

      Some may say that foreign workers do make mistakes and aren't totally 
blameless, but if Saudis treated workers with just a little respect by giving 
them basic things like time-off, suitable working hours and pay then less 
mistakes would be made. At the end of the day as human beings we really need to 
treat foreign workers kindly and welcome them as respected members of society. 

      Next time you're about to reprimand a maid and you begin asking God for 
protection from her, perhaps it would be better to begin by giving her 
protection yourself. How do you expect to win somebody's respect, love and 
loyalty if after working for years on end they can never remember having a 
pleasant, polite conversation?
     


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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