By Sara Mattar
I RECENTLY come across two news stories that made me happy and sad at the same time. The first was about a little girl named Mashael Al-Reshaidan, aged 12, who helped a Yemeni expatriate worker who could not pay his son’s medical bill.
Mashael learned about the man on social media. His boy was admitted to Hail General Hospital for urgent treatment and the hospital charged him SR4,810, which he could not afford. Without hesitation, Mashael took out her moneybox in which she had saved over SR4,800 and went to the hospital with her father and paid the bill.
When I read the story, I felt proud and happy and wished I had a little girl with a kind heart like that of Mashael. I am sure her parents are proud of her.
The other story is a sad one that has shocked me. It is about Salma Begum, a 39-year-old maid from Hyderabad in India. Salma came to the Kingdom in January 2017 to work as a housemaid for a Saudi family. On arrival, she discovered that the two Indian agents who arranged her visa had lied to her. She experienced many difficulties and problems and could not return to India. The Times of India covered her story after her daughter Sameena went to the press there.
The daughter asked the two agents to find a way to help her mother return to India because her Saudi sponsor would not let her return. The agents promised they would do something, but failed to do so. She also went to the local police in Hyderabad for help but they also did nothing at all. She told the Times of India reporter that her mother was “sold” to the Saudi sponsor who started torturing her after she refused to marry him. Finally, Sushma Swaraj, India’s Minister of External, ordered the Indian Embassy in Riyadh to follow up on the case and Salma was then able to returns to India.
Why this Saudi man did not respect the Indian woman and did not allow her to return home is something I do not understand. Did he think that she was his slave? Some people do not give domestic servants the respect that they deserve and consider them to be their property. We should treat domestic servants with respect and have stricter laws and penalties for people who abuse or mistreat workers.
