Bangladesh admits its workers returning home after sexual abuse in Saudi Arabia

Bangladesh’s Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment department has admitted for the first time last Thursday that its female workers are being called back to the country from Saudi Arabia because of the growing reports of physical and sexual abuse coming out of the Gulf kingdom. According to the new government report, Bangladesh is now admitting that a worrying number of Bangladeshi female workers are being abused in Saudi Arabia, with some serious cases of rape, food deprivation, and psychological and physical torture.

Not only are workers being called back to their home country, but this new reports notes down mainly 11 reasons why Bangladeshi female workers, many if not most who work as maids or domestic workers, also ran away from their employers in Saudi Arabia. These reasons include non-payment of salaries, physical abuse, deprivation of food, and denial of sick leave. At least 35% of the returnees had left because of sexual abuse.

Just last month, over 100 Bangladeshi maids returned home to Bangladesh after serious abuse from their employers in Saudi Arabia, while over the course of this year Bangladesh saw over 900 female workers flee Saudi Arabia. Last year, the number was more than 1,500 female workers who returned back to Bangladesh after suffering abuse.

Bangladesh first signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia in 2015 in regards to sending female workers to work as maids, after other countries like Indonesia stopped sending workers due to the continued reports of physical and sexual abuse in Saudi Arabia. Since 2015, 234, 831 Bangladeshi female workers have moved to Saudi Arabia to work as maids and domestic workers. Since 2015, however, there have been growing reports of Saudi’s continued abuse towards its foreign domestic workers, with many forced to seek protection within the kingdom if their passports were confiscated, or fleeing the country after escaping their employers.

In a shocking report by Middle East Eye, it was revealed in 2018 that Bangladesh was forced to set up numerous safe houses across Saudi Arabia to help protect the hundreds of Bangladeshi women who faced sexual and physical abuse and torture from their employers, many of whom are forced to run away from their employers and remain highly traumatized.

Rothna Begum, who works as the senior women’s rights researchers at Human Rights Watch, states the cases of Bangladeshi maids and female workers being abused are unfortunately commonplace inside Saudi Arabia, with a shocking 90-95% of cases showing the domestic worker has had their passport confiscated by their employers, essentially binding them in forced servitude. Speaking to The Independent, Begum states:

They face excessively long shifts of 15 to 21 hours with no days off at all. They might be locked inside the house or compound. They may be deprived of food or given spoiled food – the leftover bits of food on a plate. They are subject to psychological abuse in the form of verbal abuse such as shouting and insults. There is also physical abuse such as the pulling of ears, being burnt with hot water, and then there is sexual abuse which ranges from verbal to being touched, attempted rape, and actual rape.”

Female workers in Saudi Arabia are subject to highly controversial punishments, which includes the ability to be charged for moral crimes by Saudi officials. Being raped by their employers often results in maids and domestic workers, many of whom come from Bangladesh, to be subject to punishment for having sex outside of marriage. Fleeing from their homes can also constitute as a crime, in a country that seemingly has very little in terms of protection for international migrants. Begum explains:

I have documented many cases across the Gulf where men have come into the woman’s room and have either tried to rape them or actually raped them. Women have talked about being sold to another employer and not being paid salaries or having their wages delayed. The range of abuses can amount to forced labour or sometimes even slavery where the employer refuses to pay them and says things like ‘I bought you’.”

As the reports of abuses towards its domestic workers and migrants continue, Saudi Arabia must be held accountable for these crimes. Bangladesh has of yet not stopped the flow of workers into Saudi Arabia, however as the numbers of Bangladeshi female workers returning home continues to grow, scarred and abused from horrifying conditions from within Saudi Arabia, it must be taken into serious consideration whether or not punishable human rights abuses are being committed on a wide scale from within the kingdom.

Link

Hebron Under Siege

Twenty years ago, on 25 February 1994, Baruch Goldstein, an American Jewish settler from Brooklyn, New York, walked into the Ibrahimi Mosque in the Palestinian city of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank.

It was during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

He opened fire, killing 29 Palestinian men and boys and injuring dozens more, before his victims overwhelmed him and beat him to death.

Killer praised as hero

Mohammed Abu al-Halawa, now 53, a survivor who was left paralyzed by Goldstein, told Ma’an News Agency this week, “I remember the massacre at every moment and am physically still affected by it … I’m still in a lot of pain and need regular medical treatment.”

“It pains me whenever I see settlers dancing next to the grave of the criminal who left me disabled.”

For years afterwards, the mass murderer’s grave became “a pilgrimage site” for admirers.

Even recently, Israeli settlers have celebrated Goldstein as a hero, teaching their children to revere him for his murderous act, especially during the Jewish festival of Purim.

Goldstein had lived in the settlement of Kiryat Arba and had been a member of the violent extremist Jewish Defense League, founded by Meir Kahane.

On 6 April 1994, Palestinians carried out the first ever suicide bombing targeting Israeli civilians, killing eight people in the northern town of Afula. Hamas, which claimed responsibility for the bombing, said it was in retaliation for the Hebron massacre.

Punishing Palestinians

In the days immediately after the Hebron massacre, Israeli occupation forces took action not against the settlers but against Palestinians: Israeli forces killed and injured dozens more unarmed Palestinians protesting the massacre across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

This set the pattern: instead of cracking down on the settlers, Israel escalated its persecution of Palestinians, especially in Hebron, gradually allowing the settlers to take over more of the city.

The Ibrahimi Mosque was forcibly partitioned with settlers being given most of the space – a precedent many Palestinians fear the Israeli occupation will one day try to repeat at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque.

In 1997, settlers were rewarded even further for Goldstein’s massacre when the Palestinian Authority agreed to allow the occupation to partition Hebron itself into two zones: “H1” and “H2.”

H1 is nominally administered by the Palestinian Authority and is home to more than 120,000 Palestinians.

H2, under full Israeli military rule, includes Hebron’s historic Old City as well as the Ibrahimi Mosque.

Israeli occupation forces severely restrict the movement of more than 30,000 Palestinians in H2 while Israeli settlers move about freely under army protection.

Since then, settlers have aggressively seized Palestinian properties in the Old City, leaving much of the city center a ghost town.

A 2006 survey by the Israeli rights group B’Tselem found that at least 1,014 Palestinian homes in the Old City of Hebron had been vacated by their occupants and more than 1,800 businesses had shuttered due to the Israeli takeover.

This represented 42 percent of the housing units in the district and more than three-quarters of the businesses.

Hebron still under siege

In the beautifully shot 5-minute documentary above, Hebron Under Siege, Palestinian filmmaker Nizar Abu Zayyad visits some of the residents of old Hebron’s main thoroughfareShuhada Street, shut down by Israeli occupation forces since the massacre.

Zuleekha Mohtaseb’s tells us how the front door of her house, opening onto Shuhada Street, has been welded shut by order of the Israeli army

“We are barred from using the street in any way,” she says.

“To the right and to the left of us, we are surrounded by settlement outposts that harass us constantly.”

Settlers can go where they like and often throw things at Palestinians and curse them.

“You feel you are under house arrest, a prisoner in your own house,” Mohtaseb adds.

“By what right? What right grants him [the settler] freedom of movement and takes it away from me? Is it because I’m Palestinian and he’s Israeli? He is the one coming from the far end of the world and claiming ownership of the land. But I am the one born here.”

Bader Syoori, a businessowner, talks about the economic devastation caused by the closure of Shuhada Street

After the massacre, things changed totally, he explains. Israel closed the area to Palestinian vehicles before it became strictly off limits in 2002.

Samah Brewesh, 15, talked about the daily ordeal and harassment children like her face because of the settlers, while the settlers enjoy every advantage.

“Their children live in luxury, they have a place to play in. In my neighborhood, children have none.”

Abdul Halim Syoori, also a businessowner, says he wishes that things will return to how they once were, “that we live just like we used to in the old days. We work and earn a living for our children.”

Zuleekha Mohtaseb wants to use her front door. “We want the settlers gone,” she says.

Source

Afghanistan: Breaking the Cycle

Once an abuser himself, Ali Shahidy is now an ally for women and an outspoken advocate against gender-based violence in his homeland.

By Ali Shahidy

Gender violence plagues Afghanistan and my family is no exception. The patriarchal structure of our culture makes it rampant. The pervasive silence makes it everlasting. The pain of gender violence is a nightmare that haunts many Afghan families. My most tragic childhood memories are ignited every time my dad raises his voice in a violent way. The fear of seeing my mom beaten in front of my eyes incites panic. I was raised in a culture of violence. War was only part of it.

I wasn't only the son of a victim and an abuser. I became an abuser. The cycle of abuse continued as I began to beat my sisters and harass girls in the street. I used to restrict my sisters' mobility, their appearance, their associations, and more. Afghan customs taught me that the honor of my family was more important than the physical and psychological wellbeing of my sisters. I made vulgar comments and gazed salaciously at random girls in the street. I was following accepted cultural norms without shame.

During the same time, my younger sister, Roya, was forced to abandon school and marry against her will. She became another victim of domestic violence in her wretched and abusive marriage. Living in Iran, her life was a silent prison of suffering and pain. Her husband beat her during her pregnancy, threatened their infant son with a knife, and tortured her on a regular basis. His drug addiction fueled his rage. The scars on her hands and her drastic weight loss were the only things that spoke of her horror. Like my mom and many other Afghan women, Roya quietly and dutifully accepted her fate.

When we learned about the five years of Roya's suffering, we immediately took action. To rescue her, we were confronted with torrents of challenges -- financial difficulties, distance, laws that maintain gender norms, social stigma, and relatives who opposed and condemned us. These obstacles made me realize how wrong and devastating our culture was. It was the first time I studied about women's rights. I had to fight with Mullahs and our elders. I had to struggle with practices, beliefs, and values that filled my life since birth. When Roya's husband discovered our plans, the intensity of his violence escalated. Concerns about Roya's safety filled my thoughts at work, at home, and during my studies. Her life was in danger and I was her only hope.

I doubled my efforts, saved more money, learned more about women's rights, and gained the assistance of more friends. Finally, we brought Roya and her baby home. She was safe... and my world view had changed forever.

Reading and studying more about the plight of Afghan women, I realized that gender discrimination and inequality are wrongly ingrained in our culture. Everywhere I went I saw women like Roya -- women quietly accepting their fate. I knew I had a responsibility to fight for their rights and rescue them from their prisons. All women should have the same freedom as my sisters. Women should not be viewed as servants, property, or sexual commodities. Men are blind and need to be healed. Women's mouths are sealed and those seals must be broken. Violence is not a woman's fate.

I am strongly involved in advocacy work and fighting for women's rights. I am a vocal opponent of violence against women. I actively support victims and encourage people to talk about violence. Through speeches, global digital action campaigns, public awareness events, community discussions, and more, I am encouraging people to break the cycle of violence. Step-by-step, I am removing barricades and changing men's views towards women. Through tears and determination, my sisters and I changed our fate. We broke the cycle of abuse in our family.

Together, men and women will stand hand-in-hand, raise their voices, and challenge the dominant and parochial beliefs of our culture. Together we will end violence against women. Source

Poverty-stricken Indian women forced into prostitution in Middle East

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

So, what do you think of your husband's brutal crackdown, Mrs Assad?

Vogue magazine famously called her a "rose in the desert", while Paris Match proclaimed she was the "element of light in a country full of shadow zones". But when Syria's glamorous First Lady invited a group of aid workers to discuss the security situation with her last month, she appeared to have lost her gloss.

During the meeting, British-born Asma al-Assad – who grew up in Acton and attended a Church of England school in west London – came face to face with aid workers who had witnessed at first hand the brutality of her husband's regime. Yet according to one volunteer who was present, the former investment banker and mother of President Bashar al-Assad's three children appeared utterly unmoved when she heard about the plight of protesters.

"We told her about the killing of protesters," said the man, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution. "We told her about the security forces attacking demonstrators. About them taking wounded people from cars and preventing people from getting to hospital ... There was no reaction. She didn't react at all. It was just like I was telling a normal story, something that happens every day."

Syrians working with aid agencies to try to help the thousands injured as Mr Assad's security forces unleash tanks, guns and airpower to crush a seven-month uprising against his rule had hoped for a lot more. The First Lady's office contacted them and said she wanted to hear about the difficulties they faced in the field. She met the humanitarians in Damascus.

"She asked us about the risks of working under the current conditions," he added. But when she was told about the abuses of power being committed by her husband's notorious secret police, Mrs Assad's blank face left them unimpressed. "She sees everything happening here. Everything is all over the news. It's impossible she doesn't know," said the volunteer. Yet even if Mrs Assad does know about the worst of the violence and the 3,000 civilians human rights groups accuse the regime of killing, many people who have met her question what she could possibly do about it.

"Whatever her own views, she is completely hamstrung," said Chris Doyle, the director of the Council of Arab-British Understanding. "There is no way the regime would allow her any room to voice dissent or leave the country. You can forget it."

Mrs Assad, who achieved a first class degree in computer science from King's College University, was brought up in Britain by her Syrian-born parents, who were close friends of Hafez al-Assad, the former President of Syria. She started dating Bashar al-Assad in her twenties, and they eventually married in 2000, when she moved to Syria for the first time.

According to one prominent Western biographer of the Assad family, Bashar chose Asma against the determined opposition of his sister and mother. "He had lots of beautiful girlfriends before her," said the journalist, who asked not to be named. "He faced opposition when he wanted Asma because she was Sunni and he is Alawite. Here was Bashar al-Assad marrying outside the clan."

She championed several development initiatives, and delivered genuine change by helping to create NGOs in Syria, as well as highlighting the plight of disabled children and laying the groundwork for plans to rehabilitate dozens of Syria's ramshackle museums.

For some, she is the modern, made-up face of a former pariah state; to others, an aloof, 21st-century Marie Antoinette. Either way, nothing perhaps crystallised the fate of Syria's First Lady better than the disastrously-timed interview run by Vogue magazine in its March issue this year.

Amid obsequious descriptions of Chanel jewellery and her matey banter with Brad Pitt during the Hollywood star's 2009 visit to Syria, the article described how the Assad household was run on "wildly democratic principles". According to Mrs Assad: "we all vote on what we want, and where."

Naturally, many outraged Syrians were left asking why the Assads could not extend them the same courtesy.

source

The French Morality Police

Since the enforcement of France and Belgium’s bans on face veils (“niqab”), the countries’ policemen have been assigned a singularly difficult task: making sure that Muslim women behave. Police are required to detain and fine Muslim women covering their faces illegally in public. The French police send some of these women to citizenship classes where they can learn the appropriate way to exhibit their spirits of liberté and égalité, whilein Belgium offenders can also be jailed (sans face veils, of course)... As French President Sarkozy stated when promoting the ban, the niqab is “a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement” of women. Recent news articles indicate that, at least in France, the police force is befuddled about how to enforce this ban and ensure that Muslim women are less subservient and debased. Should they approach the veiled Saudi princesses shopping at Louis Vuitton with their security guards? Since that could lead to all kinds of trouble, not to mention antagonize the many Arabian princesses who are lovers of French fashion, perhaps they should instead focus on chasing after veiled housewives in minivans shuttling children to afterschool activities? How should the police handle those rebellious women living in the Muslim ghettos of Paris who cover their faces, particularly if they are carrying about in large numbers? Even more puzzling, how do the police determine if the women are donning the niqab by choice or have been coerced into veiling their faces by their husbands, brothers, or fathers? Being new at the task of apprehending and disciplining unruly Muslim women who refuse to follow the dress code dictated by the government, the French, and even the Belgians, need guidance from the pros. They should reach out to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the members of its Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, also referred to as the muttawas. The muttawas are a highly trained special task force of Saudi men who spend their days stalking Muslim women to make sure that they dress in accordance with the Kingdom’s rules and do not mingle with unrelated members of the opposite sex. There are few people in the world more concerned with ensuring the dignity of Muslim women than the muttawas. Unlike the French security officials feeling uneasy about their new duties, the muttawas have no qualms about personally following, interrogating, and punishing women who dare to dress as they choose. Women in Saudi Arabia, when leaving the house, must carefully tuck all stray hairs into their scarves, and ethnic Saudi women have to make sure their faces are completely concealed. If any of the thousands of muttawas patrolling the streets find these women in violation of the dress code, they often administer a swift tongue-lashing. If the women are particularly rebellious, the muttawas also give them a few good strong whacks with their switch-like canes. Many Saudi women have stories of being caned on the head, shoulder, or back because their hair, ankles, or wrists were showing. The women who prove particularly rebellious and dare to venture out without covering their hair or, even worst, talk back to the muttawas, swiftly find themselves in jail. If the Saudi muttawas cannot provide relevant guidance to the French and Belgians, perhaps they can impose upon the morality police of Iran for assistance. When not chasing after rebellious teenagers out on dates, men wearing effeminate jewelry, and the dog owners in Tehran, the morality police spend their time ensuring that Iranian women are covered up. Like the Saudi muttawas, they have years of experience controlling Muslim women and their errant desires to dress inappropriately. If, in the hundred-degree summer heat, women loosen their head covering or expose their ankles, they, like their Saudi sisters, are subjected to humiliation, fines and arrest by the hands of the morality police. Perhaps, if the French and Belgians fly the morality police from Saudi Arabia and Iran to commence their lessons, they will also learn that these are some of the most misogynistic individuals on earth. They are people who have stripped Muslim women of the basic right to choose how to express their individuality and religiosity, and believe that draconian punitive measures are justified to ensure that women dress and behave only according to the government’s dictates. Surely, their grossly paternalistic viewpoint has no place in a society such as France that prides itself on its ideals of liberté and égalité. If the French and Belgians decide to strictly enforce their bans, and if Italy and Spain carry forward with their own bans as they are currently contemplating, they will only assist fanatics such as the muttawas oppress Muslim women. This, because the muttawas already rely on the assumption that women have no real freedom anywhere in the world, explaining on their website: “There are those who say that we must leave people alone and not interfere in personal matters of virtue from which they refrain, because this conflicts with their individual freedom. [T]here is no such thing as 'personal freedom.' It is a lie. . . Have you found personal freedom in the east of the land or in its west? In Eastern or Western regimes? None whatsoever, neither here nor there.” Muslim women can only hope that the muttawas and their kin are wrong, and that the liberal secular countries of Europe will ultimately reject the notion that it is fair to harass and oppress Muslim women in the same manner they were treated in places like Saudi Araba, Iran, and Afghanistan. Uzma Mariam Ahmed is a Contributing Writer to Altmuslimah.com.

Egyptians protest over 'virginity tests' on Tahrir Square women

Comment: Words cannot express how disgusted and outraged I am about this...and the general's comments they reflect how so many men think, if the women are not your own family (those under yout control) they are fair game to be humiliated and assaulted...disgusting!

Egyptian activists will hold an online protest on Wednesday to press the military leadership to investigate soldiers who abused pro-democracy demonstrators, including women who were detained and forced to take "virginity tests".

The interim authority, formed after Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February, has come in for increasing criticism from the youth movement for the slow pace of its reforms, and intolerance of dissent.

The abuse of the women, which was confirmed by a senior army official, has caused particular anger, and prompted a storm of protest on the internet.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces had previously denied claims by Amnesty International that 18 women detained in March were subjected to virginity checks and threatened with prostitution charges.

But an Egyptian general told an American television network on Monday that tests were in fact conducted, and defended the practice.

"The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine," the general, who requested anonymity, told CNN. "These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found … molotov cocktails and [drugs]."

He said the tests were conducted so that the women would not be able to claim that they had been sexually abused while in custody.

"We didn't want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren't virgins in the first place," the general said. "None of them were [virgins]."

Amnesty condemned the general's comments and called for a full investigation.

"This general's implication that only virgins can be victims of rape is a long-discredited sexist attitude and legal absurdity," a statement said. "When determining a case of rape, it is irrelevant whether or not the victim is a virgin. The army must immediately instruct security forces and soldiers that such 'tests' are banned."

The women were detained on 9 March, nearly a month after the revolution that forced Mubarak from power, when soldiers cleared Tahrir Square after men in civilian clothes attacked protesters.

One of the female victims, Salwa Hosseini, 20, told Amnesty that she and the other women were forced to remove their clothes before being strip-searched by a female guard. Male soldiers looked into the room, and took pictures, she said.

The women were also beaten and given electric shocks, Amnesty reported.

The growing dissatisfaction with the interim government is increasingly clear. While the military council has pledged to organise elections this year and hand over to a civilian government, tens of thousands of people appeared in Tahrir Square last week to demand faster reforms.

Youth activists have said that additional, online protests are necessary because Egypt's mainstream media treads too softly around the military, a taboo carried over from Mubarak's reign.

The new rulers have shown themselves to be thin-skinned, with a military prosecutor summoning a prominent blogger and a television journalist after they criticised the army during a talkshow. Three other journalists were also called in for questioning on Tuesday. They were all released without charge.

In a statement, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information condemned the military council for "dispersing fear" among the media and the judiciary. The group said that three judges were also under investigation for appearing on talkshows where they criticised the use of military courts for civilian cases and called for judicial reform.

source