RIYADH: The head of the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (RCCI) Recruitment Committee, Waleed Al-Soweidan, has criticized a report by the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) on the ill treatment of housemaids in the Kingdom, saying the report is based on only “a few cases in which domestic helpers have suffered.”

In its 133-page report, entitled “If I Am Not Human: Abuses Against Asian Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia,” released yesterday, the HRW called for sweeping labor and justice reforms and for stricter punishment for sponsors who abuse workers.

“Saudi families are abusing female migrant workers to the point of slavery and Riyadh needs to respond with sweeping labor and justice reforms,” the report stated.

“There are more than a million domestic helpers, including maids, in the Kingdom and it is natural that there will be some problems and disputes here and there,” said Al-Soweidan. “In fact, migrant women in Saudi Arabia enjoy good working conditions and kind employers, and they are not treated like virtual slaves as claimed by the report.”

Nisha Varia, senior researcher in the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, agreed that workers do get fair treatment in Saudi Arabia, but that the level of abuse is persistently high enough to raise concerns.

“In the best cases, migrant women in Saudi Arabia enjoy good working conditions and kind employers, and in the worst they’re treated like virtual slaves,” she said. “Most fall somewhere in between.”

Zuhair Al-Harithy, spokesperson for the Human Rights Commission (HRC), said that the facts cited in the report are true but that he felt it was exaggerating the severity of the problem.

“The report said there were thousands of abuse cases in Saudi Arabia,” he said. “If that were the case, why would eight million workers be applying for jobs in the Kingdom?”

The HRW made it clear that no data exists to calculate accurately the number of women migrant domestic workers who experience violations of labor rights and other human rights. However, the foreign missions of countries that provide labor to Saudi Arabia can shed light on the situation.

For example, Indonesia’s acting Labor Attache Adi Dzulfuat, told Arab News yesterday that the embassy receives thousands of complaints from Indonesian women working in Saudi Arabia every year. Complaints range from nonpayment of salaries and forcing maids to work all the time to physical abuse and rape.

“The Indonesian mission in Riyadh alone has been receiving 10 to 12 complaints from Indonesian workers, especially women workers, on a daily basis,” he said.

HRC’s Al-Harithy said that many of the problems highlighted in the HRW report match those mentioned by his organization. “We actually don’t differ much from what the HRW is calling for,” he said.

But Al-Harithy criticized the report for not mentioning any progress that has been made. “We were hoping that the HRW would mention the progress as well as the flaws,” he said.

The HRC spokesperson cited two major reforms. First, a so-called “housework list” that would implement reforms to the relationship between the maid and her employer. He said details would be announced soon. The second reform is one that has been mentioned in the press in the past week: possible changes to the “kafala” system that would take sponsorship authority away from the individual employer and put it in the hands of three or four large recruitment agencies.

The HRW report cites this reform, but states that it “would still exercise enormous control over the lives of migrant workers.”

Al-Harithy countered these claims by saying the HRW should not “prejudge the new system.”

The HRW report also asked the Saudi government to do more to punish Saudis who are found to have abused their domestic servants.

In one case from last year, a Sri Lankan woman by the name of Anista Marie was rescued from forcible imprisonment in a Riyadh villa after she secretly contacted Arab News to ask for help. Though Marie managed to make it home with partial compensation for her back wages, the sponsor, a Saudi woman, was never charged with violating Saudi law.

— Ghazanfar Ali Khan in Riyadh & Ebtihal Mubarak in Jeddah