Arab Countries Bringing Thousands of Muslim Women from Bangladesh as Housemaids, Using Them as Sex Slaves

✍️ Mujaffar Hossain

A female domestic worker from Barishal has returned to the country pregnant from Saudi Arabia. After being handed over four times to different houses, this woman, who became a victim of physical and sexual abuse, is currently at the BRAC Learning Center in the Ashkona area of the capital. She said that while working in Saudi Arabia, she received no salary, no food, and only endured torture. Due to hunger, she even scavenged food from dustbins. Through a mobile app, she learned that three months’ salary had already been paid to the employer, but she received nothing.

On the other hand, another woman who returned from Saudi Arabia 13 days ago in a mentally unstable condition could not be recognized by her relatives because she had no passport or identification documents. Later, through the initiative of the police and BRAC, her identity was confirmed and she was handed over to her family.This is not a new incident.

In 2020, I wrote:
Recently, the body of a teenage girl arrived from Saudi Arabia. Although the documents stated it was suicide, it was not. There were signs of torture all over her body. How does a 13-year-old girl go abroad to work, especially in a country like Saudi Arabia, which is unsafe for girls?

Last August, 14-year-old girl Kulsum died in Saudi Arabia. The employer and his son in the house where she worked beat her, breaking both her arms, legs, and waist. They destroyed one of her eyes. Then, in that condition, they threw her onto the street. In October, Runu Begum from Khulna returned from Saudi Arabia having lost her mental balance.

In the 8 months of the corona virus pandemic, the bodies of 22 women workers arrived from Saudi Arabia, 14 from Lebanon, 11 from Jordan, 7 from Oman, and 4 from the United Arab Emirates. In the last four years, 175 bodies have arrived from Saudi Arabia. Most of the deceased had signs of unspeakable torture on their bodies.

Sufia Begum from Faridpur, who returned from Saudi Arabia, said, ‘Many times, to escape from torture, many commit suicide. Unable to endure the torture, I myself tried to slit my throat with a knife.”I didn’t go there for sex work. I went for work, to do work, eat rice, earn money, and raise my children. I went for hardship.’—Words of a female domestic worker who returned from Saudi Arabia.

In 2018, I wrote:
Victims of physical, mental, and sexual abuse, in the last 6 months, one thousand Bangladeshi ‘Muslim’ women have returned from the holy land of Muslims, Saudi Arabia. The women who returned home are not getting support from any government agency. Many cannot even return to their families. Families are not accepting the abused women. They are also facing social stigma. Regarding this, the concerned authorities are blaming each other.

The Director General of the Wage Earners’ Welfare Board says the recruiting agencies must take responsibility. The recruiting agencies say they are not responsible. The women domestic workers went to Saudi Arabia based on an agreement between the two countries. They say the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment has the responsibility.But what needs to be said, no one is saying. No one is holding Saudi Arabia accountable for these incidents. Instead, our authorities are accusing of misinformation. No matter how much evidence there is on the body, like iron burn marks, broken arms and legs, the embassies are not presenting these to the Saudi authorities. Rather, they have to pay compensation for returning before the contract ends.Where other countries do not want to send any female workers to Saudi Arabia, why are we, with our developing status, sending our sisters there? And when we knowingly send them, why is there a problem for families to accept them back after they return?

Another post from 2018:
Image of the Saudi harem: The head of the same family and his six sons together raped her repeatedly. If she protested a little, she would get punches, kicks. She was threatened with being cut into three pieces and kept in the fridge.Why are our girls going to work in perverted sexual-behavior families like in Saudi Arabia, spending 2.5 lakh taka for a 25 thousand taka salary full-time job? Why is the government sending them? That’s what I don’t understand. The world knows that working women suffer the most insecurity in Saudi Arabia. And there, working women mostly mean domestic workers. Women’s insecurity in Saudi Arabia is followed by Kuwait-Qatar. That’s why the Philippines-Sri Lanka are no longer sending female workers to Saudi Arabia. In a holy land like Arabia, where the entire Muslim world goes to perform the holy Hajj, considering the entire Arab as a pilgrimage site, why women would be victims of sexual abuse, that question is not mine. That’s entirely their personal and domestic matter. My question is, since we are sending this huge number of female workers—meaning our own mothers and sisters—there, how prepared are we for that? Just sending them isn’t enough; the state must ensure their security. Remittances coming in isn’t the big thing. When the Saudi government is taking female domestic workers under 34 years old with conditions, it should have been understood that there’s something fishy!

News has come that Saudi Arabian women do not want to hire beautiful women as housemaids in their homes. Saudi Arabian recruiting agencies are saying that housewives now want to see photos of potential housemaids in advance, especially those coming from Morocco and Chile.

In 2010 or 2009, an Indonesian female worker, unable to change the torture and abuse from her Saudi mistress and family members, finally resorted to using a knife in self-defense. The mistress died. According to that country’s law, this sister, who was forced to do so to save herself, became a murderer. She was executed like any other killer. The embassy learned much later. All of Indonesia became agitated. Stories of torture and injustice on female domestic workers started coming out one after another.

Human rights organizations from the other two main countries supplying domestic workers to Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines, united with Indonesian human rights activists to raise voices against torture and injustice on migrant domestic workers.

At one point, Nepal also joined this alliance. Sri Lanka stopped all activities of supplying female domestic workers.

The Philippines sent a parliamentary delegation to Saudi Arabia to assess the situation on the ground. Upon returning, they informed the parliament, ‘We cannot sell our girls to Saudi Arabia to be raped or tortured.’