Mick Hartley

Dramatic events elsewhere in the Arab world, but in Saudi Arabia it's the same old story:

The Sri Lankan Embassy rescued on Wednesday an Asian maid who was kept as a virtual slave by her Saudi sponsor for 17 years.

Kusuma Nandini, 56, came to Riyadh in 1994 from Sri Lanka and was kept a virtual prisoner at her sponsor’s home. She was not paid salary even once during 15 years of her imprisonment and forbidden from communicating with her relatives in Sri Lanka. ..

According to diplomats, Nandini had forgotten her native tongue when she was rescued and behaved like a robot. “She couldn’t speak her native language and had forgotten her family members when she was rescued,” said Wijesinghe.

“After meeting other Sri Lankans at the embassy, the maid began remembering things and started picking up her native language,” he added.

The Sri Lankan Embassy learned about Nandini’s plight after her 25-year-old daughter, who lives in Kalutara, some 40 km from Colombo, informed the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry that her family had not been in contact with her mother for 17 years.

Embassy officials visited the home of Nandini’s sponsor and those who lived there denied she was there. Officials persevered and were able to subsequently track her down and bring her to the embassy….

“I am very happy and thankful to the mission in Riyadh for having rescued me from this house where I was working like a machine,” she said, adding that she thought there was no point in thinking of her home in Sri Lanka as she was permanently imprisoned in the house.

“I did not see sunlight during the past 17 years since no one took me out,” she said.

Still, it's not as though the Saudis aren't willing to consider radical new solutions to their problems. Consider the ban on women drivers. It is, in fact, a grey area, with the police, especially out in the country, often turning a blind eye. One of the main drawbacks with the current situation, of course, is that Saudi women, being unable to drive themselves, must employ male drivers – which can lead to all sorts of problems with khulwa, the crime of unrelated men and women being together in an enclosed space. So here's the idea, as put forward by a columnist in the local al-Madinah newspaper:

I would like to suggest the recruitment of women drivers from neighboring countries, especially tough women from east African countries no older than 40. With such women driving cars, our women would feel comfortable to sit in the front seat. They will not be embarrassed to wear perfume when going out on occasions.

If the female driver went to buy groceries, then there will be no issue in her entering her sponsor’s house, unlike the case of a male driver. Moreover, she will live along with the family inside the family house, unlike a male driver whose whereabouts at night are often unknown. This idea has been successful in neighboring countries, especially in the UAE. It could succeed in the Kingdom if it was planned properly and presented to the wider society in a positive way.

Brilliant. What could possibly go wrong?