Women workers in Saudi Arabia
Women workers in Saudi are forcibly confined, exploited and abused by their employers. There are at least one million expatriate women working legally in some of the lowest-paid jobs in Saudi Arabia. The overwhelming majority of them are domestic workers in private households. Others are employed as hairdressers, beauticians and maintenance staff in gender-segregated public and private facilities. In case of women workers, exploitative labour conditions such as workdays stretching to twelve hours or longer, unpaid salaries, denied benefits, and threats and intimidation from employers are common. Employers demanded their passports when they arrived in the kingdom, and in most cases did not provide them with an official residency permit, the only document valid in Saudi Arabia for identification purposes. The evidence also demonstrates that many exploited women workers in Saudi Arabia suffer one gender-specific abuse: forced confinement.
They are literally locked in their workplaces and residences for the full term of their employment, with little or no ability to interact with the outside world. Women subjected to forced confinement which private employers unilaterally impose and government authorities tolerate are particularly vulnerable to abuse because of their extreme isolation.
In cases that the Human Rights Watch documented, these women had no effective means to complain to their embassies or Saudi authorities about contract violations, gross mistreatment, and in some cases sexual abuse and rape, unless they manage to escape. The denial of the right to freedom of movement, combined with oppressive working conditions, leave many of these migrant women in situations that arguably constitute servitude or forced labour under international law. According to the Human rights watch, women are facing intolerable working conditions in Saudi Arabia.
Bangladeshi women workers are also abused by the Saudi employers. So many victimized women are coming back after they were harassed in Saudi Arabia.
The governments of the two countries should look into the matter and find a solution to the problem.
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