Mick Hartley

From Human Rights Watch:

The killing of two Indonesian domestic workers by their employers in Saudi Arabia highlights the Saudi government’s ongoing failure to hold employers accountable for serious abuses, Human Rights Watch said today. The brutal beatings by these employers also left two other Indonesian domestic workers critically injured.

Seven members of a Saudi family who employed the four Indonesian women as domestic workers beat them in early August after accusing them of practicing “black magic” on the family’s teenage son. Siti Tarwiyah Slamet, 32, and Susmiyati Abdul Fulan, 28, died from their injuries. Ruminih Surtim, 25, and Tari Tarsim, 27, are receiving treatment in the Intensive Care Unit of Riyadh Medical Complex. Saudi authorities have detained the employers.

“The brutal killings of these Indonesian domestic workers occurred in an atmosphere of impunity fostered by government inaction,” said Nisha Varia, senior researcher in the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch. “Not only do the authorities typically fail to investigate or prosecute abusive employers, the criminal justice system also obstructs abused workers from seeking redress.”

Approximately 2 million women from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and other countries are employed as domestic workers in Saudi Arabia. They are routinely underpaid, overworked, confined to the workplace, or subject to verbal, physical, and sexual abuse, Human Rights Watch said. Despite being victims of abuse themselves, many domestic workers are subject to counteraccusations, including theft, adultery or fornication in cases of rape or witchcraft.

During visits to Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka in November and December, Human Rights Watch interviewed Sri Lankan domestic workers sentenced to prison and whipping in Saudi Arabia after their employers had raped and impregnated them. Three months ago, an Indonesian domestic worker in al-Qasim province was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 2,000 lashes for witchcraft, a reduction from an original sentence of death. The Indonesian embassy did not learn about the arrest, detention or trial of the worker until one month after the sentencing…

Cases often drag on for years. Nour Miyati, an Indonesian domestic worker, sustained serious injuries and lost her fingers due to gangrene in 2005 after her employer locked her up, physically and verbally abused her and deprived her of food. She then faced a countercharge of making false accusations against her employer, and was sentenced to 79 lashes. A court subsequently overturned that conviction and sentence, but she still awaits a final monetary settlement from her employer and the ability to return home to Indonesia after her ordeal.