For the first time, Indonesian maids working in Saudi Arabia will be guaranteed a monthly wage, time off, and contact with their loved ones, under a new agreement signed by the Gulf kingdom and Jakarta this week.
Human rights groups say
the pact is a step towards ensuring the protection of foreign workers'
basic rights in Saudi Arabia.
But it fails to address a worrying trend
of domestic helpers filing complaints of exploitation and abuse only to
face counter-allegations by their employers of "theft, witchcraft or
adultery," according to Human Rights Watch.
The penalties for these
crimes are harsh in the deeply conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
which practices a puritanical form of Islam.
"There's a real belief,
and it's something that can be prosecuted through the Saudi courts, that
black magic or witchcraft is real," said Nisha Varia, senior researcher
for women's rights at Human Rights Watch.
'' Domestic workers are especially vulnerable to these types of accusations because of cultural differences."
Earlier this month, King Abdullah pardoned
an Indonesian maid, who was on death row after being convicted in 2003
of "casting a magic spell on her employer and his family," a spokesman
for the Indonesian Embassy told Saudi news site, Arab news.
She returned to her home in West Java, but others haven't been so lucky.
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