Saudi Arabia jails Indonesian maid after alleged torture
Saudi Arabia jails Indonesian maid after alleged torture
Agencies, Riyadh
An Indonesian maid badly hurt after she was allegedly tortured by her Saudi employer has been jailed pending trial over "making false allegations", an embassy official said on late Tuesday.
Nour Miyati, 25, was taken out of hospital in Riyadh on late Monday and sent to a women's jail, while her embassy was denied custody, labor attache Mohamad Sugiarto told AFP.
"I will write to the minister of foreign affairs (again demanding custody) after the head of the investigation team (into the case) rejected my request to release her into the custody of the embassy," Sugiarto said.
He said his request had been delivered on Tuesday by a lawyer, who was told it was turned down.
Nour was reported last March to have been brought to hospital by her Saudi employer as gangrene spread to several parts of her body.
She said her employer had tied her hands and feet and imprisoned her in a bathroom for a month, the English-language daily Arab News reported on March 23.
He also allegedly severely beat her, damaging her eye and knocking out several teeth because she failed to clean the house properly, it added.
Sugiarto said Nour had nine fingers and one toe amputated.
A statement by the Riyadh governor's office issued in May said Nour and the couple who employed her were to face court after an enquiry found she had been beaten but not tortured.
According to the statement, Nour retracted charges that she was tortured and tied up, although a medical committee found wounds and bruises to her body suggesting she had been the victim of violence.
The employer's wife admitted to beating Nour's face with a shoe and investigators also concluded that she had been denied medical care and proper food.
The couple were charged with neglect, and the wife charged with beating.
Nour was charged with "making false allegations which misled the inquiry" and led to the detention of the employer throughout the investigation before he was freed on bail.
Sugiarto said Nour was in "bad physical and mental condition" at the time she was reported to have retracted her charges.
He did not know when the trial would start.
Mistreatment of maids is rampant in Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf states.
A recent U.S. State Department report has determined that Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates tolerate "involuntary servitude or slavery".
The department said Saudi Arabia has failed to protect domestic workers.
"We have (in Saudi Arabia) domestic workers being brought in from many countries into domestic servitude, child beggars, a lot of beating, reports of beatings and rape - very difficult to get shelter, no convictions," said John Miller, the senior adviser for human trafficking at the State Department.
New York-based Human Rights Watch alleged in July 2004 that foreign workers in Saudi Arabia were systematically abused and exploited. The oil-rich kingdom denies such charges.
Sugiarto said he regularly receives complaints of maltreatment and non-payment of salary from housemaids, who make up some 90 percent of around 600,000 Indonesians in the country.