An old issue has surfaced in the media once again. A Dhaka-based English daily has reported that Bangladeshi housemaids who claimed to have suffered torture, abuses and other problems queued up at Bangladesh missions in Saudi Arabia recently for taking shelter at their safe homes. At least 1248 housemaids who took shelter at the safe homes were sent back home this year. Officials said 350 housemaids were still in two safe homes. This is something that has been bothering many minds along with the government in Bangladesh since the time when we decided to send our women as housemaids in that country.

I had an opportunity to visit the Saudi Arabian cities of Makkah and Medina recently where I met several Bangladeshi professionals there. I had asked around about the state of Bangladeshis living in that country. They provided quite a lot of information on our people working in Saudi establishments. Some are doing great and some are living in a sorry state. They told me that they were somehow surviving with low-paid jobs.

One of the workers’ lot are the housemaids. They claimed that the housemaids from Bangladesh are passing their days in painful conditions. They are allegedly harassed, abused and in many cases betrayed by their employers in that country. Sexual abuse is one of the gruesome experiences that the housemaids have to go through in Saudi Arabia. Things have gone to such an extent that the Saudi wives are now preferring old and not-so-good-looking women as their housemaid so that their husbands don’t be attracted to them. Sometimes, a single housemaid falls prey to more than one man of the family.

The Bangladeshis claim that Saudi government laws are very strict in this respect. The government has announced that the victims would get proper justice if they could come to the court of law. However, this is next to impossible for these poor women to find out a way to seek legal help. Most of them fail to seek legal help and they remain in that misery day after day.

It’s not only Bangladeshi women who allegedly experience these sexual abuse. Women from Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Uganda and Cambodia have reported expressed the similar experience. Uganda recently wanted to ban its housemaids from traveling to work in Saudi Arabia after complaints of poor working conditions and mistreatment. They wanted to send university graduates to the kingdom to work. The Ugandan government had said it had received complaints from workers of being inhumanely treated by their employers in that country. Indonesia, Ethiopia and the Philippines have also banned migrants from traveling to Saudi Arabia until they could be assured the workers were given basic labour rights. The Indonesian government used to vaccinate the housemaids before going work there so that they don’t become pregnant. They also wanted to make a deal with the Saudi government that they would have to allow the husbands of the housemaid to accompany their wives to that country.

If these allegations and reports are partially true, everyone has a cause to worry about the state of those maids. We must thank the Bangladesh mission in that country for creating a safe home for the distressed women who seeking for help. However, back home, we may rethink our policy to send our women as housemaids in a country where there are fears of being sexually abused.

Then again, we may consider making a new negotiation with that government for allowing the husbands to accompany their wives who would go to work in the Saudi houses. A serious thought needs to be spent on this subject so that our women are safe in not only Saudi Arabia, but also in any country in the world. After all, what would we lose if we don’t send our women to that country as housemaids? Unemployment in women? Yes, may be, but we don’t think Bangladesh is in that situation in which it won’t be able to create jobs for about 50,000 women.

On its part, what the Saudi government could do is to raise awareness of their men; mere laws may not be enough to protect the women who go there to have some decent income putting in their labour. The word that the women are allegedly being abuse is spreading across the world. If the government in that country doesn’t give its best effort to end this misery, this would remain as a shameful scar on the face of that country.