Guess what this image is…
A Sri Lankan maid whose Saudi employer allegedly hammered 23 nails into her arms, legs and forehead is set to undergo surgery Friday, while government officials meet with Saudi diplomats in Colombo over the incident.
L.P. Ariyawathie, a housemaid who worked in a household in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was held down by her employer’s wife while the employer hammered the heated nails, said L.K. Ruhunuge of the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment.
The degradation of guest workers, of foreigners, is just one of the many retrograde trends in the Gulf. Though worker abuse and violence against lower classes and castes is not limited to the Gulf, the mistreatment of housemaids and others is too frequent in Saudi and other Arab households. That hardly makes more acceptable such egregious cases. And it is not clear that the corrupt and authoritarian regimes there have any interest in doing anything about this.
There is a culture of impunity around guest and migrant workers. Note that in this especially blood-curling case, the wife held her down as he hammered away into her. That a conspiracy among partners was involved makes this more horrifying; a single perpetrator acting alone is possibly an anomaly. That is, of course, unless the husband threatened the wife as well, thereby forcing her collusion.
Embedding nails in another human being was their ghastly punishment for the crime of her complaining about being overworked, which she likely was. Other less-overtly violent forms of abuse happen publicly. As much as this is an embarrassment for Gulf countries, their feeble counter-efforts have done little to stem the tide. Nimr wrote about the lax laws and cheesy public awareness campaigns that do not hold much promise.
Some countries, Kuwait for example, passed legislation improving worker conditions, setting hours, requiring health care and even allowing courts to sentence abusers with jail time. Whether they do is another question entirely. These are moves in the right direction, but appear inadequate.
As the UN pointed out, the fundamental problem is the sponsorship system, which binds guest workers to citizens, giving the employers all the leverage. This makes them something like indentured servants; functionally, they are shades away from being the chattel of a slavery system (which we do see in modern human trafficking, a global problem).
Even if the laws change, the problems are also partially socio-cultural. In part, such treatment exhibits a latent racism. It is reserved for guest workers of darker complexions, from countries such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Philippines. Perhaps short of racism — and I stress “perhaps” — is the sentiment that housemaids do not deserve much more than the bare minimum in terms of food and payment, and humiliation is often part of the job. Sarakenos observed this in Amman. This strikes me as giving way to the types of violence we see in this gruesome case of L.P. Ariyawathie.
Arabs need to turn even insulting household help, drivers and maids, into a taboo. Those who humiliate or demean the people who dedicate their lives to helping them for little pay, and only to provide for their families, should be ostracized and made into social outcasts. It is a pathetic practice that goes against human decency, let alone some of the best wisdom and behavior of the prophet:
- “Feed the hungry and visit a sick person, and free the captive, if he be unjustly confined. Assist any person oppressed, whether Muslim or non-Muslim.”
- “Pay the worker his wage before his sweat dries.”
- “Have compassion on yourself and on others and Infinite Compassion will be given to you.”
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I saw the headline yesterday, and much as I like to think I don't shy away from ugliness, i could not get myself to read the article.
This is unfathomable. The Saudi couple should be made to slave in some similar couple's household.
Posted by Nada | August 27, 2010, 9:45 amUnder strict Sharia law, the couple should have the same thing happen to them. They should be held down and have nails hammered into them. This shouldn't be a political issue. They should apply Sharia to it. If the couple wants mercy, they can beg their maid and offer her some money for compensation.
Posted by Jamal | August 27, 2010, 10:27 amWill, thanks for covering this.
A friend told me about her visit to the safe house for Filipina workers in Amman recently. Burning, strangling, raping, starving, beating…none is uncommon. I am glad you added the verses you did, as during Ramadan, domestic workers suffer even more. The short tempers seen on the road are taken home, and out on the most vulnerable there. They are often forced to fast, and are awake 24/7 serving the various needs of the family and extended family.
I believe racism is the foundational issue.
When people genuinely believe that others are subhuman, created to be servants, or have only a child-like understanding of life due to their perceived weakness, brown-ness or religion or class, it seems a clear call.
The Prophet Isaiah had words for Jews who fasted and oppressed their laborers, 58:3-4, a timely reminder to me:
3 ‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not?
Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’
Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure,
and oppress all your workers.
4 Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to hit with a wicked fist.
Fasting like yours this day
will not make your voice to be heard on high.
Posted by kinziblogs | August 27, 2010, 12:32 pmLet's skip the strict Sharia law, please. The spirit of Islam may be merciful, its legal sytem is not.
Posted by Nada | August 27, 2010, 4:22 pmPersonally I'd rather have 23 nails driven into me than spend 15 years in prison, which is probably what you'd get for this crime in America. This is a very good candidate for in kind recompense because it appears to be reversible. There's a pending case in KSA where a court appears to be granting a request from the victim to paralyze a man whose attack left him paralyzed. The 23 nails are certainly less severe than paralysis.
The Quran mentions "an eye for an eye." It doesn't differentiate between employer/employee, citizen/foreign worker, or anything else. The victim has the right to abrogate. It sounds like she would most likely do that if she were given some sort of monetary compensation.
Applying Sharia in cases of foreign worker victims would send a serious message to abusers in the area. Anything less is pure hypocrisy.
Posted by Jamal | August 27, 2010, 5:34 pmThink it's time Sri Lankans revolt against us Arabs.
Posted by no words | August 27, 2010, 11:57 pmThe Sri Lankan government should ask for an investigation and request that strict Sharia Law is applied to this sadistic couple and their children. Unfortunately the Sri Lankan govt is run by a set of uneducated hypoctites who are only interested in taking bribes and avoiding issues like inhuman abuse like in the case of Ariyawathie.
If the govt had any guts they would request all Sri Lankan guest workers in Saudi Arabia to return to Sri Lanka and request other governments to do the same.
Economically this would be bad for poor countris but the Saudi economy will collapse !
However, Mahinda Rajapaksa the president is only interested in being the President for life until his son Namal , "The Clown Prince" is ready to take up the presidency!
What hope for Sri Lanka?!
May Allah help Sri Lanka!
Posted by Dr Sarath De Alwis | August 29, 2010, 7:35 pmHow many here are for Shariah punishment against the sadists employers (23 nails driven in to the culprits bodies; an eye for an eye)?
And how many here are for Western style justice(10? years of jail term for inhumanely hammering, not 1, not 2, but 23 NAILS into a fully conscious fellow human being)?
Posted by OooKhalid | August 30, 2010, 11:13 amSaudis claim it's fake.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ml_saudi_sri_lanka_abu…
Posted by Jamal | September 1, 2010, 7:13 amPlease don't distort Jewish law. "An eye for an eye", which comes up in Leviticus, doesn't actually mean damaging the eye of a person who damaged another's eye. That's barbaric and unjust, for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that no court could exactly duplicate the damage done from one person's eye to another without risking doing more damage.
"An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, etc." means "an eye's worth for an eye", paying restitution for the disfigurement, lost work/productivity, medical treatment, pain and suffering, etc. This was already well established case law by the 2nd Temple Period, but 2500 years later, there is still confusion on the matter among non-Jews.
Posted by Victor | September 1, 2010, 9:53 amNot talking about Jewish law. This is Islamic law, which has its roots in various ancient Middle Eastern sources.
Posted by Jamal | September 1, 2010, 11:01 amOk, keep dreaming. Sharia has its roots in halacha, unless you'd like to explain from which other culture the concept of halal meat comes from, or why a "Sura" happens to be both a Quranic verse AND a major center of Jewish Talmudic studies in Babylon long before Muhammad.
It's alright, imitation is the biggest form of flattery, but let's keep it real. If anything, Islam can only gain by looking at the Jewish source texts from which so much of the Islamic faith developed.
Posted by Victor | September 1, 2010, 12:35 pmYawn, like this kind of crap that took place thousands of years ago even matters. Why don't you go bulldoze a few Pal houses. That will make you feel better. It will all be Palestine again in a few decades anyway. Nothing like ethnic supremacy to make people stupid.
Posted by Jamal | September 1, 2010, 1:45 pmIslam and Judaism both have the same origins.
Its just that Islam is Judaism-7.0
Posted by OooKhalid | September 2, 2010, 12:02 amSo Islam is the Coke Zero to Judaism's Coke Classic?
Forget about it. I commented originally on the "eye for an eye" issue, and the misapplication of this principle by some people not to serve justice, but to seek vengeance. I'll be happy to take arguments on that point.
Posted by Victor | September 2, 2010, 10:43 am"but to seek vengeance." That in fact is the point. The right of vengeance is a form of justice. In Islamic law you have this right, but it is recommended that you forgive. Vengeance is a part of all justice systems, whether people acknowledge it or not. Families in America are routinely offered the right to watch condemned killers executed. This is clearly a form of vengeance. Even without the death penalty, the "rights of victims" are bantered about all the time. The "rights of victims" are primarily the right to see the perp suffer.
An "eye for an eye" is actually a limitation. I would much rather it be used in America as opposed to what we have in place. We have things like drug users and sellers serving 30 years in prison. An "eye for an eye" would limit this and all victimless crimes.
Of course KSA also has harsh drug laws, not that they actually strictly follow Sharia. They're hypocrites just like everybody else.
Posted by Jamal | September 2, 2010, 12:49 pmVengeance is not justice, it's vengeance. This is why justice is administered by impartial courts, not by victims or their relatives.
In Islamic law you have this right
You may be confusing Islamic law with Arab tribal law, but I'm no expert.
Regardless, vengeance is not applicable to Jewish law. The application of punishment, including execution, in a Jewish court – and it was considered a severe Jewish court that sentenced a man to death once in 70 years – is a form of penitence, what we Jews called teshuvah, repentance or return. The punishment handed down by a court, usually lashes, but including execution, is not administered to satisfy vengeance, but to expiate an individual's sins through physical trauma and cleanse their soul of its defilement.
The "eye for an eye" argument is actually a complicated one in the Talmud and commentaries. As I mentioned before, it is impossible for a court to apply this principle literally, by poking out the eye of someone who poked someone's eye out, because there is no guarantee that the damage will be limited to the eye. Let's say Jack cut off Bill's hand, and a court decided cut off Jack's hand in response. What if Jack's cut gets infected and he loses his entire arm, of they can't stop the bleeding and Jack dies. That punishment doesn't fit the crime, certainly not by the principle of "eye for an eye".
Next, not all eyes are created equal. What is the value of the eye of a blind man? By your standard, his eye should be judged the same as of a seeing person. The eye of a coal miner is not equivalent to the eye of a photographer. By whose eye should the punishment follow – its worth to the coal miner or the photographer?
Matters of law – at least Jewish law – have to be decided by people competent in evaluating these issues in an impartial manner, not following after their heart's desire for blind vengeance.
Posted by Victor | September 2, 2010, 10:11 pmI should go bulldoze some Palestinian homes because you can't accept that Sharia has roots in Jewish law? But it doesn't matter if Sharia has roots in Jewish law, because it will all be Palestine in a few decades?
It's true what they say – when you argue with idiots, they win, they always win.
Posted by Victor | September 1, 2010, 9:32 pmBut you want to, don't you? I mean bulldoze Pal houses. I'm attempting to demonstrate the link between Zionism and Jewish Supremacy.
Do you agree that Israel should cease to exist? If so, sorry because I jumped to an incorrect conclusion.
Posted by Jamal | September 2, 2010, 6:39 am